Alien Romance: Interview with an Alien (Football Paranormal Invasion Abduction Alpha Sci-fi Romance) (Fantasy First New Adult Contact Science Fiction Mystery Sports Alien Short Stories)

by Robin Cavanaugh

  Paris: 1891.

  We have finally made it to Paris, Everard and I. with Madam Latrine's blessing we have finally been released from the Plantation and set free. We are no longer trapped in a place of cold and constant darkness, but now living in a place that is beautiful and thriving, full of life. Never could I be happier than I am now; and to be here with him only makes my dream of freedom ever more a reality; one that I have not quite grasped yet.

  Everard Is quiet, yet I can see in his eyes that he is happy to be finally free. He is standing on the balcony of our quaint little apartment, gazing out at the lights of Paris below us, arms outstretched upon the railings, his hair blowing in the warm, gentle night air. God knows how long he has dreamed of this moment, and now he is living out that dream. I am happy for him, so happy. I am in love with him deeply. My friend, my lover, my soul mate. He deserves to be happy; he deserves to be free.

  As my eyes read over the words of my first entry upon our arrival in Paris, I could see our apartment come to life as if I were back in those times. A dreadful sadness had consumed me then, and I found myself mourning for the past, mourning for the life that I had lost here. As I read the words, I could see now how in love I had been with Everard. I was obsessed with him; he possessed me like a spirit possesses a young child. He was the be-all and end-all of me.

  Silently, I rose to my feet carefully picking up my journal as lightly as I could. I walked out to the old balcony where Everard had once stood. I leaned my arms over the railings and continued to read.

  Paris, 1891.

  Everard has gotten a job at a local art gallery in central Paris. Everard has always loved the arts. He is working now on a new painting as I write. He brushes his hand so gracefully across the canvas; he truly is fascinating to watch. Below me, the streets of Paris have come alive. I can see men and women walking to the local theatres, dressed in all their finery to see the finest production of the evening. Everard insisted that I should go see a production tonight but I refused, it would not seem right to witness a play without him beside me.

  Now that I am with child, I am finding it difficult to enjoy the things that I once so loved. Instead, I find myself merely sitting here at my dresser writing down my thoughts whilst I sit with my free hand perched upon the round swell of my belly, counting down the days until our child is born.

  I am very near now, the midwife says. I have another two months before Everard and I get to see our beautiful son or daughter. We truly will be a happy family then. All the hardships that he has endured! I hope our child I will give him back the happiness that he lost so long ago.

  He was overjoyed by the news of my being with child. When I had revealed the news to him, he looked at me with his blue eyes, face emotionless, before sweeping me up in his arms and kissing me so tenderly that his love almost burned my skin.

  He will be the perfect father, of that I have no doubt. We are truly blessed.

  My pale, slender fingers flicked through my old tattered journal until I finally reached the entry which I had almost inscribed upon my mind. Hands shaking, I hesitated to look down at the tragic words that were displayed upon the brown-stained parchment pages. I suddenly became a child all over again; one who was afraid to face up to her past. I had to read it one last time, perhaps after all the years of ignoring its existence, I might just find an answer to what I was looking for. But what was I looking for?

  Paris, 1891.

  Why have you left us like this? Have I displeased you? Insulted you? Tested your patience? Why have you left me to a lonely fate here in our Rue Chavern? Are you punishing me for some unforeseen crime?

  You have been away from me for so many nights that I am beginning to fear for the worst. Do you know what torment I am going through, knowing that you are out there somewhere? Alone.

  Are you dead? Are you alive? I feel numb, broken, and now our child is moving inside of me, making its presence known.

  I cannot live like this knowing that I have wronged you. We were supposed to be a family, the three of us, remember? Yet you have left us to a fate that has cast us out of your life completely. Why? Have you suddenly had a change of heart? Do you no longer want us in your life? Have you left because I am with child?

  All I did for you, my love, I did out of love. You are my beloved, my one true love and no matter how much hurt and pain you lavish upon me now with your disappearance I will still pray that you will return to me, to us, when you see fit. I will wait for you day and night. My eyes will search Paris for you and will only be contented until they see you again.

  I love you, Everard, I always will, yet I hate you so for this!

  Beneath was the final entry of my mortal years. What it contained frightened me.

  Paris, 1891.

  Something is moving in the corner of the room. I can sense it. I can feel it watching. I no longer know if I am merely overtired or if I really see it! I can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. I fear I am losing my mind. I have not slept for many a night, and now all I see is darkness and hear an evil voice whispering my name over and over from the shadows.

  I can hear it now. It's beckoning me to it! The strange thing is I am not afraid! Why should I fear death if it has come for me? I am ready. Let it come.

  Oh, beloved, I will be with you soon! Death is calling me. Calling us.

  Droplets of blood stained the parchment a horrid brown color. I felt sick by just looking at it. I knew all too well what that blood had come from. Not long after I had written my final journal and had clambered into bed was I taken. The memory was so vivid, so intense that in my preternatural mind it replayed itself over and over again.

  I walked back into the room in darkness. Mournfully I stood in the center of the room, unsure of what do with myself. The words of my final entry consumed my mind. “Why should I fear death if it has come for me? I am ready. Let it come.”

  Had I really lost my mind? Was that what drew him to take me? Or was it simply out of love that he brought me over? Either way, I was longing for death, I wanted it, craved it, needed it. Such a tragic truth to behold when at the time there had been life growing inside of me.

  Oh, how eternity had hardened this cold heart, yet at the first memory of my mortal life, that heart melted out of me into a pool of red at my feet. Suddenly I felt the urge to flee this place, but resisted it. I had one more thing to do.

  *****

  Placing the journal back onto the old dresser, I left it open on the last page that I had read. No one would find it, of that I was certain, Leaving my past behind me, I walked swiftly down the winding staircase and out to the back garden without a second glance. My heart was racing now as I let my feet carry me to the one place that I had not been strong enough to visit until now. I followed the overgrown path as if it was only yesterday that I had been here and in my mind, it still looked and felt as if I was safely home.

  Slipping silently through the overhanging ivy and fern trees that brushed against my face, I continued walking down the old stone path that was now completely submerged with wet leaves the colour of autumn. When I broke through the clearing of trees, it was as if I had walked back into my past. Everything remained unchanged. There, in the far corner stood the little tomb that had been built especially for our child who had never lived, encased with overhanging ivy and lavender flowers blooming all over the great stone tomb of my child.

  Before I could get control over my emotions, the tears spilled from my eyes, staining my marble-white cheeks crimson. I sobbed. Long, drawn-out cries of anguish and despair as I stood beside my child’s grave, staring at the nameless one whose body did not even reside inside of the cold tomb. There was no body. The child had emptied out of me in a red flush the moment Everard gave me the vampire’s kiss.

  Oh, my child. My mind whispered painfully; you cannot know how it pains me to stand here beside your empty grave. You had a chance to live, and I stole that chance from you. I let myself be defiled by your father, but you see he was no
t himself, he was not human; what human feeds off the blood of their loved ones?

  I found myself searching desperately for an excuse for why I let it die. I blamed him, but I knew deep down that it was not his fault. He was confused, new to the blood; he didn’t understand what he was doing. All he knew was the excruciating thirst that consumes all of us when first born to darkness. I had been enthralled, yet frightened. Upon seeing him returned to me, all I felt was happiness until I saw his face. I let him take me; I wanted to die and who better than to take my life than my beloved? I was selfish, so selfish! Not once did I consider the pain that our child would endure. I often wondered if our child suffered as it died. I often wondered if it knew how sorry I was for not being strong enough to save it.

  With cold fingers, I reached out to brush against the old withered stone. I was weakening, I could sense it; I was in dire of need of blood, so thirsty yet too submerged in my sorrow to do anything about it. I would not leave here like this! I would not leave this empty grave until I had truly mourned a life that had not lived. After all, wasn’t it the least I could do as I stood in immortal mockery at my child's grave? My child who never got to see the light of day?

  Suddenly I was furious at him. A fire burned so intensely inside of me that I was afraid that I would lose control. I felt sick with crazed curiosity if he had even visited our child’s grave. Would he bother to make an effort to grieve for the one thing in his mortality that he truly lost? Or would the mud here at the cemetery be too unbearable for him to endure on his new shiny boots?

  Two hundred years in the blood had not only hardened a once gentle heart, but also corrupted it into a selfish, arrogant being who was insufferable and quite detestable. I understood completely why others of our kind hated him. They hated to love him, and they loved to hate him. Who could resist the rebellious one? The raven haired one, the arrogant one? After all, Everard only acted out what we kept as our secret fantasies. Everard wanted to tell the world that he was immortal and that they would love him just because they could! It's hard to resist him no matter how much of a cruel fiend he became over the centuries.

  But could my Everard really be so cold? So many questions flooded my mind at that moment that I suddenly had an urge to go back to the château in central Paris and confront him about it, but thought better of it. What was done was done, and I had to accept it no matter how bitter a taste it left in my mouth.

  Mournfully, I turned my head to the side of the tomb to look at the inscription upon it. Nothing. An unmarked grave, an open invitation to all kinds of evil without the Lord’s blessing.

  Pain. Anger. Thirst. In a cold fury, I tore my hand away from the tomb and descended into the night air once more. I had to leave that place; I could take it no more. Already the sky was turning pale with the promise of sunrise. Shades of pale pink and peachy orange painted the sky. There would be no time to hunt now.

  In my rage, I knew that I had two options of where I could find rest and sleep off the day. I could either choose to return to the one being that I had loved who I had not seen in over two centuries, or I could face my demons and sleep in the empty tomb of the nameless child. In my heart of hearts, I knew that I had made my decision., I turned on my heel and once again, like a figure of a lost soul, quietly made my way towards the tomb.

  I forced open the stone lid before piling myself inside. I was drained, so very drained. Pulling the lid shut I lay there for a moment in the dank, dark silence wishing that the body of my child was in my arms and that I was singing to it. But it was just a fantasy, and no matter how hard I tried to remember that I was no longer mortal, the pain would consume me. Never again could I bear a child, never again would I feel the warmth of a newborn babe upon my breast. I was doomed to be this creature. Taker of life, cold and unfeeling. The walking death.

  Embracing my nature with bitter resentment, I let myself fall victim to the age of sleep.

  *****

  The thirst awoke me, burning and raw. My throat had become dry, and I could feel how tightly I clenched my jaw as I resisted the urge to bite down into my own lip and draw blood. I needed to hunt. I had gone too long without blood. It was foolish of me. I knew I should have hunted before my descent to Paris, but I was so desperately curious as to why I had been summoned by my old lover that the idea of draining a human slipped my mind.

  Silently I cursed myself for being so careless. I was always so careful.

  The twinkling lights of Paris engulfed me as I stood beneath the grand Eiffel Tower, drinking in the beauty around me.

  I watched the young sweet couples who huddled together in loving embraces beneath the illuminated tower of romance. I was hungry, insanely hungry. The scent of the blood of the mortals intoxicated me and almost made me drunk on the smell alone. I had to close my eyes to stop from revealing my true nature.

  All the issues from the previous night left my mind as my main priority became feeding. But I had a problem, there was no evil that lingered within the grand central. They were all good people, innocent and in love. The only evil here was me.

  But oh, how I needed to feed! Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear Everard’s mocking laughter as I fought with the urge to hunt an innocent. As wicked as he is, one thing he taught me was to only hunt defenseless humans, the ones that littered the streets in sleeping bags and begged for mercy. They were not evil people, and when I fed upon them, I did it out of kindness. I released them from their pain, but Everard was not so kind. He would kill all of them and not bat an eyelid as long as his thirst was sated.

  Oh, truly I could go and find one. I was positive there was one lurking in alley somewhere waiting to rob or to rape a young woman. If my strength had been up to it, I would follow them like a hunter, but I was weakening by the minute and I could not last another hour without sustenance.

  So, I did what I had to do.

  He was a young man of about twenty. Dressed alternatively as I, as was the fashion. His hair was black as the night itself and fell down his back in a long waterfall. He could have almost passed for one of the undead himself, but for the fact I could smell his life-force on him.

  He had been to a concert and was now returning to Central Paris to meet some friends at a club. He asked to join him, and I, ever the hunter, accepted. If I were to drink from him, then I needed to do it in private.

  We reached the alley where the underground club was located. The alley was completely abandoned, all its occupants already inside. I was grateful for that. Slowly he turned and gestured to the doors.

  “In here,” he purred in perfect French. “It is a hidden doorway to stop others gate crashing our turf.” He smiled proudly.

  He was so beautiful.

  When I didn’t move, he frowned. “Mar Cher are you not coming in?” Slowly I stepped closer to him. He was tall like Everard, if not a few inches taller. Hmm, he would not like that, I thought. I could feel his gaze fixated on me.

  “Indeed, I do wish to go in,” I whispered softly into his ear, “Though, I fear I am very thirsty and in need of a drink before we continue.”

  I heard him give out a slight laugh. It was obvious he didn’t know what I was. I was glad. It meant that his death would make my feeding all the quicker.

  “There are drinks inside,” he said to me while taking my hand and edging me toward the door. He didn’t flinch at my coldness. “Come.”

  It was then that I chose to make my move. Quickly I released my hand and pinned him to the wall next to the doors, my face staring up at him. He didn’t seem shocked.

  “Or if you're in such a hurry we can go back to my place,” He whispered seductively, his arm snaking its way around my waist. For a moment, I found myself enjoying this activity but the need for blood was making me feel dangerous, and one wrong move on his part would force me tear him to pieces.

  “Hmm,” I whispered leaning up to his slender throat. He tilted his head at me as if he knew what was coming. “As much as I would enjoy that, my love, I’m
afraid I must cut our meeting short.” With that, I sank my teeth into his neck.

  Hot blood filled my desperate, wanting mouth in a crimson waterfall. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t cry out, he only sighed, one that encouraged me to bite deeper. And I obliged.

  In a red tidal wave, his life was revealed to me. He was an innocent. He lived his life the way he chose, played in a heavy metal band and aspired to be famous. He loved his family, his mother in particular. She was ill, and he was looking after her; she was all he had.

  I ripped my fangs free and let his body slump to the floor. He wasn’t dead just unconscious, but if I had held on any longer, he had would have been dead. I had intended to kill him, to spare him false mercy but I found that I could not. He wasn’t an evil man, and no matter how much I thirsted for the rest of him, I refused.

  Slowly I bent down to him. His eyes fluttered open and closed. With a serene expression, I whispered to him, “Do not be frightened my love. You have been spared. Go home and look after your mother. She needs you as much as you need her.” And with that, I left him there for a mortal to find and to care for him.

  *****

  “It’s me,” I spoke quietly into the slender phone.

  “August?” His deep voice questioned. Silence followed. He never was much of a conversationalist.

  “I’m coming home,” I told him.

  “From Paris? I expected you last night, but you never returned.” I let out a long sigh at his words.

  “I... there were some complications,” I assured him calmly. It was his turn to sigh now. Oh, how I missed his sighs.

  “He's in Paris isn't he?” Kyle asked calmly as if he already knew what it was that had prevented my return the night before.

  “A distraction,” I replied impatiently, “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  “What was the urgency?”

  His clipped tone suddenly caught me off guard. My mind had begun to wander with thoughts of my one true love. “I will tell you when I arrive back in London. I will meet you back at the house. Have you fed?”