The Craving

Chapter Four- Laid to Rest

Even though night had been thick around them, casting shadows of tenebrous in all of Louisiana, the moment was rather serene as it had just been the two of them. The soundtrack of nature filled the silence between them as he moved closer and closer to her-as if preparing to move in for a kiss. She stood in her long nightgown that accented her silhouette in the most pleasurable way as he finally stood into the small ray of moonlight that seemed centered just for him. Thora’s breath nearly hitched at the sight of him as he was the most striking man she had ever seen. Her gaze had focused upon his facial features at first as her eyes were immediately drawn to his.

A set of smoky blue eyes that wavered between the fine line of gray and blue. His gaze set her on fire from within as it seemed as though he was trying to read her mind with such an intense set of optic dedication. His lips were perfectly full and kissable as they were slightly moistened by the nervous tick of his tongue rubbing over them. The man’s jaw was firm and chiseled as if sculpted specifically by God himself. A devilish smirk fell over the perimeter of his mouth when he noticed her gaze having scanned him from head to toe. Her analysis continued with her having then noticed his sense of style as it was something of a mix between vintage and modern. A pair of dark jeans of a thin fabric hugged his muscular legs and kept up by a belt exposed by a thin chrome buckle that caught her own hazel gaze. A white dress shirt was rolled up to his elbows and kept close to his torso by a dark gray vest that had a set of double buttons placed directly down its center.

She studied him as he seemed incongruous to the other men in her town-especially those she was unfortunate enough to have graduated alongside. His muscles contracted beneath his clothing as he folded his arms before her, showing a few tattoos that would be hidden beneath his sleeves otherwise. Although the held a sort of floral design upon his emblem carved into his skin with a needle and ink, they were difficult to see by his movement and the shade of the blackness that surrounded them. He ran his perfectly calloused yet elongated fingers through his thick stygian haircut rough to appear as a comb over with a few strands hanging over his eyes. He flipped his neck to keep his locks from poking into his eyes which was an attrahent to her.

For a moment, their eyes locked together and it was as if time had ceased just for them. The way she watched him was as if he was an exotic animal concealed within a cage, as he looked to her as he saw the extent of virtues still in tact behind her kind smile. There was a trepidatious nature to their stances as they both stood aware yet drawn to the other person.

"I don't understand it…" she began to speak with a very faint Louisiana accent coming through with select words. "Why am I not afraid?" She spoke upon bringing her hand to his chest. The way she was drawn to him had made her oblivious to the fact her had neglected to feel a pulse. Their gazes didn't break as a sudden noise within the home had alerted them of her father's conscious state. As if he was Superman to her, he swept her quickly from her porch and into the night where they hid behind a large willow tree across the yard. They watched as her father emerged with a scowl as he glared through each motion his gaze caught upon. When the sound of the screen door closed, the figure looked down to her as he had unintentionally pinned her against the tree. If either of them would expel a deep enough breath, their lips were in close enough proximity to touch. However, the man withdrew himself from this temptation as he moved along the water, watching her follow him.

She knew deep within her consciousness that following a man at night would be the first part of an abduction story. However, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was the man who had saved her when she decided life was too harsh for her fragile heart and also gave her enough money to disappear if she wished to do so. She had no evidence of this aside from the faint floral scent that came in place of cologne; the same aroma that accompanied the shadow from the railroad tracks and the bag that held her potential to a new life. It was due to these feelings that she ignored all reason and lingered beside him as he brought her alongside the glass water beside them that reflected the beautiful stars overhead.

"Why is it that you saved me?" She managed to ask through her nervous smirk. Her gaze altered between the ground in front of her and him as she was afraid if she looked too long at him than she would walk into a crocodile's mouth, but also too afraid if she looked ahead that he would no longer be there when she surveyed back. She managed to fight a happy medium while hearing him speak. His accent was certainly prominent to be American, but not southern and no easily recognized. Much like him, his timbre was an enigma.

"You have so much more to experience to find your end against cold metal and screeching tracks."

"But you could have died…" the words sent shivers down her porcelain skin as the man stopped his forward venture and turned to face her. Using the back of his fingers, he caressed her cheek and caused her to blush to being the object of such attention.

"Some people are worth death." He spoke as her gaze suddenly connected to the location they now stood.

The cemetery.

Its morbid existence stood as what she found to be a form of therapy to those she lost, but for him-she noted the comfort he seemed to have in regards to the eerie locale. A slight dew rested on the blades of grass beneath their feet as long branches supplied the background to the gothic romantic scene. Stones of varying shapes and sizes littered the area around them as she took in the scene in full. Flowers of southern season were left for those who were forced to mourn those taken too soon, as her eyes caught upon a very specific stone.

She knelt down without worry of her white nightgown growing befouled by the dirt of Louisiana. Her perfectly manicured figures stalked each engraved letter that spelt a name oddly familiar to her. “K-A-N-E, A-B-E-R-N-A-T-H-Y”, she read the letters aloud as if she was a young child who was learning to read for the first time. This continued as she sounded out his name before turning to the man and seeing his eyes having changed from their seductive gray to a horrifying solid black. The sclera of his eye had been overtaken by a color similar to venta black while his iris was colored identical to that which his held by a protective blue ringed octopus. Most people set in her position would have screamed or tried to fight the figure before them; but Thora became transfixed upon the man before her. Although he held a ghoulish appearance with his dark features and prominent gaze, she continued to feel as though she could trust him. He carried his fingers to her face and used his somewhat long nails along her soft skin that held a slight blush that was hidden beneath the moonlight. The man’s unguis had been rather feminine as they stretched enough to cover the tips of his fingers. As his touch connected to his face, she could feel herself begin to fall into a deep trance-like state with the stranger until finally awaking in her familiar sheets.

For a moment, she was disoriented as the dream had felt so very real. Even down to the scent of aged stones that were set in the ground for generations and the feeling of the writhen branches having grazed upon her cheek. When she pulled the covers from her body and planted her feet upon the ground, she happen to notice a sudden chill that she had been shielded from beneath her comforter. She scanned the room and saw how her bedroom window had been left open and thus the mystery of the sudden cold was understood. Her fingers climbed over the top portion of the wooden glass frame and forced it down until her eyes fell to a single rose set upon her windowpane. She pulled it inside her home and then locked her window tight before reclaiming the spot upon her bed and focusing on the flawless bloom. Thora’s fingers pinched the petals just light enough to feel their unbelievable soft nature as she could remember that softness being felt by the man in her dream. His lips had brushed upon her skin, teasing her virginal exterior with the tempting graze of his finger until she had awoken.

She set the flower within a vase kept upon the desk in her room that stored her writing utensils until the flower demanded to stand alone. She threw the random mixture of pens, pencils, and markers into her nearby drawer and admired the flower for a moment until her bedroom door began to shake. Her stomach and heart both dropped as she recognized this noise all too well. She let out a deep sigh as her father’s voice called her name on the other side.

“Open this goddamn door!” He demanded as she rushed to it, knowing he would rip it from its hinges if the action was required. When the wooden structure slid open to expose her heavily drunken father, he moved into the direction of her closet and forced the bag from its hiding spot until its contents were dumped upon her bed. “What the hell were you trying to do? What have you been doing to get this?” He asked, nearly falling over to his questions. He caught himself upon her desk, forcing a picture of her mother to crash upon the floor and have a crack upon the glass. She went to try and keep him upright before feeling the back of his hand make contact with her cheek. Thora apologized profusely for having kept such a thing from him, but before any more damage could be done, he forced her to place the money back into the bag and quickly took it within his grasp.

“Were you going to leave me like your mother?” He asked with a touch of sadness that replaced just a part of his anger. Her fingers began to fidget with themselves before she was forced to answer by his thick grip on her jaw. If he were to press any harder, she could have had him perform a root canal within his harsh grasp. “She didn’t leave-” She spoke the words quietly, petrified of the anger her father held in his once content repose. “She died-” Thora continued to remind her father before finding him to force her up against the wall by her hair. Her back was facing him and her cheek would later bruise by his exertion as he began to slur his attempt at releasing the pain he felt when losing his wife and son. He began a rant of how he had wished it had been her instead of his son and how she was nothing but a disappointment to him. This was enough to make her crack beneath his words and begin to sob against the wall. If she was given just a moment of strength or her father were to lose some of his, she would have managed to escape from him-but this would have to be after he left her with her new wounds. As he finished with the comment in needing a drink, she collapsed onto the floor via sliding down the wall and curled into herself. If not for the stunning red rose set in her peripheral vision, this moment would have caused for her to bring a thumbtack to her skin to draw blood and take her angst out upon her own skin. But the beauty of the bloom and the perfection of the figure that had given it to her was enough to keep her from harming herself. With the man’s face set in her mind, she set out from the house-evading her father as he sat upon the couch and yelled at a semi-centennial aged rerun of a western show. Due to the sound of released ammunition and swearing southerners, she escaped without his knowledge as she didn’t intend on returning.