Courtney H.

It was abnormally dark out that night.  Nothing could be seen, I swear by it, I even think the black smothered the noise anything could make.  Either that, or like me, everything was just too scared to move.  It was almost like the sun had burned out, and there was nothing but space.  Even the stars were gone.  I could hear something, it was approaching slowly, calmly, like there was nothing wrong with the world.  There was something wrong.  There was something terribly wrong.  I moved a little, but was frightened by my own foot steps.  They seemed foreign to me.  How could it be that this thing moved?  How could it stand to do so?  I was paralyzed.  Suddenly, the movement stopped. 

"Hello?" I called timidly.  My voice broke and shook all over the place, and I began to think of all the things the other creature must think.  "I know it must be thinking 'I bet she's vulnerable.  I bet she's easy prey.'  I know it must be thinking that," I thought to myself.  I was so scared I thought I was paralyzed. 

"Hello," a voice replied.  Obviously some male voice, he was way too calm though.  "What is up with this guy?  Does he think it's funny to scare me?" I began to think, angrily. 

"Umm, I was wondering, do you have jumper cables or a car or something?  My car's gone dead, and I can't really see so well," I said a little more firmly, just so he'd know I wasn't afraid of him. 
 
"Allow me to help you with that then," he said with that same silky smooth tone that sent shivers down my spine.

"Thanks," I said in a mock blasé tone.  I think he knew I was faking it.  Suddenly, a light appeared. 

"I had a lantern under my coat just in case.  It is somewhat dark out tonight," he said.  However, this time I could put a face to his voice.  He was pale, paler than I was which is something of a miracle.  His black wavy hair rested just above his shoulders and his whole posture was erect and calm.  The light played on his dark eyes in a way that was somewhat appealing.  However, his calm shook me up more than the fact that he'd magically produced a lantern from under his coat. 

"Well, I guess it's my lucky day to run into such a lovely beauty," he said mockingly.  I was no beauty in fact, I was quite plain.  My hair ran in uneven waves with uneven color from a bad bleach job, and my clothes were sort-of tattered from my fall when I tried to get out of the car.  I looked like a train wreck. 
  
"Yeah, whatever man," I replied sorely, but to smooth over my rude tone I said, "Do you happen to have a car or anything?  Or were you just out for a walk?" He laughed at me. 

"No need to be so cynical; I find most women don't know their own appeal.  I usually don't use my car, so it's back at my home.  I'm quite sorry.  I can accompany you to the nearest gas station if you want an escort though.  I know the dangers of walking alone when unarmed without light," he stated in a nonchalant tone.  As if he were being valiant or something!  Valiant? He was just weirding me out.  Him and his creepy smoothness.  However, an escort seemed like a good idea.  I had my mace if something went wrong, and I could just steal his lantern in that event.  So I agreed.  We walked in silence most of the way, until I decided to strike up a conversation.

"So, I'm guessing you live near here?" I inquired timidly.

"Yes, about two miles from here," he replied smoothly.

"Two miles!" my eyes must've crossed and everything, this guy was doing me a huge favor,"Wow!  If I'd have known that your place was so far from here, I wouldn't have bothered you to come!"  I was seriously embarrassed.  He just laughed it off though.  His laugh was sort-of nice, although it had that same tone which also made it not so nice. 

"Don't worry about it," he said with a wave of his hand as if it were no big deal," I usually walk down this way anyway and pick up a few things from the store.  These night walks of mine tend to be quite long, I'm just glad I'm not rambling and that I actually have a purpose this time."  At that, he smiled down on me, and I turned my head a little so he couldn't see me blush.  How gross, he was making a move on me.  He was very attractive and all and I guess nice, but it just seemed awkward under the circumstances.  I think he sensed that he'd embarrassed me though. 

"Well, thank you for coming with me anyway.  Once I get my car up and running again I could always drive you back to your place if you want," I said.  Suddenly, I realized how he could take that the wrong way, and I blushed even more.  I was seriously praying he didn't see.  He just laughed some more.  "This guy must think I'm a real loser or something," I thought, mortified at myself. 

"Thank you for the offer, but there's really no need.  I'll be fine. Besides, I do have to do some shopping," he said calmly with a smile on his face.  What an idiot!  I'd forgotten he said he had to do some shopping.  Now I felt even more retarded than before.  I just sort-of laughed and said "no problem" in this really lame and weak voice.  God I was really goofing up!  I thought about how I'd goofed up the last time I'd run across a really handsome guy though and thought, "Maybe that's it, I'm just intimidated.  Not to mention, my personality is something of a failure." We continued on in silence and the gas station lights were blaring not to far ahead.  I thought to myself that this sign of life must've been smothered because of the dark.  We really hadn't walked all that far from my car.  Then, suddenly, he said something.

"I guess that this is where we part.  The store is a little ways to the left off this road," he said pointing with his light.  Indeed, there was another road.

"I suppose so,' I said kind-of glumly.  I was thinking I might actually miss this weirdo. 

"Well, it was nice to meet your acquaintance...?" Just then, I realized I'd never even introduced myself. 

"Oh God!  Where are my manners?  My name is Katrina," I said in this really embarrassed voice.  "Good Lord, I'm so dumb!" I thought angrily.

"Aakarshan is my name.  Well, it was nice to meet your acquaintance," he said calmly, with a smile playing on his lips.  "What a fruity name," I thought. 

"Akshan? Where's that from?" I said.  I was really goofing things up.  I didn't even say his name right. 

"Aakarshan.  It means 'attraction' in Hindu.  My parents were a little on the strange side.  They were Hungarian, which explains why my middle name is Bajnok, but my mother had this facination with the Hindu way of life.  So there you have it," he said, blushing.  It was really strange seeing him blush.  I gave him a questioning look, and so he said," I'm probably boring you to death with my history.  I apologize,"

"Oh no!" I said hastily," I find it all very fascinating.  I've never heard of a name like that before."  It really was interesting.  Aakarshan, what a cool name. 

"Well, it is getting quite late, so I think you'd better hurry before the station closes.  I'll run along as well, goodnight," he said slowly.  I was really glad he'd accompanied me by that point. 

"Oh, I guess so.  It was nice to meet you too Aakarshan.  I guess I'll see ya around," with that, I left hurriedly.  I have to say, I've ever before felt quite so dumb as I did in that last half hour. 

I walked on, but looked back over my shoulder, he was sitting there watching me.  Not in the creepy way though, but just to make sure I was okay until I was out of sight.  I was glad for it.  He waved at me, noticing my hesitation.  I waved back timidly, but then turned back around hastily.  I had kind-of been staring.  How embarrassing.  I reached a point where there was a bush that was illuminated by the gas station.  I rushed behind it, but then peered around to see what had happened to Aakarshan.  I saw him lower the lantern, and then put it out.  As far as the gas station light shown on him, I watched him retreat into the darkness. Letting out a big sigh, I walked up to the gas station entrance.  The only thing on my mind was Aakarshan.  "What the heck was I thinking when I said, 'I'll see you later?'" I thought.  I'd probably never see him again.  I shot a glance back in the direction of the other road, but didn't see anything.  I just sighed again and went in. 
   
"Hello there, miss," said the greasy store owner who seemed genuinely glad to see me. 
   
"Hey, I was wondering if someone could drive out and get my car, or jumpstart me or something," I replied back distractedly.  I really wasn't caring too much about my car anymore. 
   
"Sure thing, miss!" said the owner.  He yelled something into the back room that I was too distracted to hear, and then he said something to me.
   
"Hey miss, you alright, you look lost or something?" he asked kindly, but I just wasn't in the mood to talk with him. 
   
"I'm fine, thanks though.  I'm just worried about my car," I said a little too coldly.
   
"Well, my brother is outside in the truck.  He'll take you back and jump ya, 'kay?" He was kind.  I was grateful for it.
   
"Thanks." I said waving to him. 
   
Later on in the car, the owner's brother, Mike, turned to me and told me he'd spotted my car.  He got my car running and I thanked him over and over, and he just smiled with a very homely smile.  Then he said something that surprised me. 
   
"Wow, miss!  You know, you walked over five miles, you know that?  It's nothing in a car, but geez, what a ways!  It musta been hours before you found us.  Weren't you worried?" 
   
Completely taken aback, I said, "Five miles?"
   
"That's right ma'am."
   
"I hadn't even noticed," I said.  In fact, I really hadn't noticed at all. 
 
The whole way home, I never stopped thinking about him.  I'd repeat his name over and over again in my mind, or even out loud.  For some reason, I couldn't forget him.  I wasn't even really paying attention to where I was going.  Before, I had been so intent on coming home I couldn't think of anything else, and then I'd met Aakarshan.  Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" was blasting on my radio.  I was doing everything just to try and forget his name, forget what had happened, and concentrate on the road.  I had already almost got myself killed.  Suddenly, I noticed him on the side of the road and came screeching to a halt. 
    
I looked out the window of my car only to see that no one was there.  "Am I imagining things?" I thought to myself.  It was getting ridiculous.  I had not seen him.  It was just a figment of my imagination.  "I'm going crazy.  I know it now, I'm just going completely loony," I thought.  Then I realized I'd said it out loud.  I blushed, even though no one was there to hear my blunder.  It felt like someone was there though.  I knew, rationally, no one was there.  It still felt like I was being watched.  I sort-of shuddered from the thought, but more from the fact that I had honestly thought I'd seen him on the side of the road.  I was really turning into a nutter.
    
"What the heck is wrong with me?" I raged at myself out loud, still parked in the middle of the damn road, "I'm acting like a school girl with a silly crush.  Maybe I'll go home and even write about him in my diary with little hearts and everything!  What an idiot."  Just then, the giant tractor trailer's lights behind me caught my attention.  "Ugh," I thought, as I hit the gas as hard as I could, "That's the second time I almost got myself killed." 
    
I eventually made it home alive, which is something of a miracle.  I flopped down on my couch which made a big thud and I picked up a notepad that I had on the coffee table next to it.  I absentmindedly began doodling something as I raced through the conversation I'd had with Aakarshan for what must've been the eight hundredth time that evening.  It was well past midnight, but I knew sleep was not going to happen that night.  I recalled how I'd acted like a flipping idiot and how he'd been so smooth and calm.  Then I remembered how he'd called me beautiful.  I still wasn't able to decide if he was being smart with me just then because of my rude tone or if he'd been honest.  I halfway knew he was being smart, but halfway hoped he was being honest, and thought I was pretty.  At the thought of him thinking I was pretty, I grinned irrepressibly.  I happened to look actually notice what I was doing in that brief glimmer of happiness and saw I had written his name with little hearts around it.  Disgusted, I threw the pad, but it only flopped through the air for a few seconds before landing at my feet.  I got off the couch at that point and decided I needed something to drink. 
   
Even though my parents weren't home, I didn't go raiding the liquor cabinet or anything.  I was a water freak.  To put it a little better, I was a health freak.  Nothing but organic-everything and filtered water.  Sad, isn't it?  Here I was, seventeen, and I was worried about dying from Fritos because they had hydrogenates in them.  Also, junk food was supposed to give you more acne.  I had a big problem with that as it was.  It occurred to me then about what Aakarshan had said, and that maybe he had really just been pulling my leg.  People said they didn't notice it, but I know they could see it.  It was blatantly obvious.  Suddenly the phone rang.  I nearly jumped out of my skin, and had to wait a couple of rings for my heart to slow down.  Then I picked it up slowly.  The number on the caller ID didn't ring any bells. 
    
"Hello?" I said in this really dumb scared voice.
    
"Hey honey!  It's your mom!" My mother has the loudest voice on the face of the earth.  If you didn't know her, you'd think she was screaming all the time. 
    
"Oh hey mom.  What phone are you calling from?"  I was curious why I didn't know that number. 
    
"It's my new cell, duh!'  I hate it when she tries to sound cool.  I really do.  "I was just calling to check up on you!"
    
"Mom, it's like one in the morning.  I'm going to bed, okay?" 
    
"Oh?  I forgot, sorry!  Goodnight then and she hung up.  I leaned on the counter for a minute holding the portable, when suddenly the phone rung again.  I figured my mom had something to ask me she'd forgotten before.  I picked up. 
    
"Hello?" I asked in a really irritated voice.  It wasn't my mom on the other end. 
   
"That jerk," he thought angrily, "that dirty little whiner."  He'd never forgotten that night.  That terrible dark night when he'd come across her.  He didn't know her name when he'd first seen her, but he knew she was nothing better than that.  Now he knew her name.  He knew it, and repeated it to himself every night. 
   
"Katrina," he said aloud.  Heads turned, but he was too lost in his own hatred to take notice.  The name still burned his tongue.  When he'd first seen her at the gas station, though a whore she was, he'd thought she must have been an angel from heaven come to answer his prayers.  He'd prayed long and hard for someone like her.  He'd been with many other women.  They were always the same.  They always screamed at his touch, they'd always been weak, and fought him instead of just accepting their fate.  He'd never understood them.  That's why he'd not felt bad when he killed them afterward. 
   
This Katrina though, she was supposed to be different.  Every bone in his body had told him so.  He had decidedly gathered up enough courage to go and tell her she looked like an angel.  He even told her that he knew she was the one he'd been looking for.  She had cringed.  Angered by this, he figured she was only playing with his mind.  After all, she was the biggest whore he'd ever seen.  All teenagers her age were whores.  Their short skirts, their done up hair, and plastered faces.  They were so fake looking, and he knew what they were hiding.  She told him, though, to get lost.  He told her he was lost in her beauty, and grabbed her.  She didn't make a peep when he put his hand over her mouth, and he liked that.  Only when he took her behind the gas station, did she finally start struggling.  She bit him hard on the hand, and he had yelped a little, but then grabbed her again.  She started screaming.  He had quickly began to rip off her clothes, but then decided it was not worth it.  She had disappointed him.  His angel, she'd fought like all the others.  He was angry with her.  She was supposed to be the one.  The one he'd spend the rest of his life with. 
   
He took the butcher knife he'd put behind the cooling unit of the building earlier out and was about to slit her throat in his rage, when suddenly he'd heard sirens.  Her screaming had attracted attention.  "I will have enough time," he had thought.  He had been wrong, as he went for her neck, someone grabbed him.  He missed completely and ended up giving her a big gash along her belly.  She had screamed even more at that.  As he was wrestled to the ground, he saw her flailing about like a fish on dry land screaming and crying.  He was disgusted by her.  She was supposed to have been the one. 
   
He had learned later from the police that someone had seen him grab her and called the police immediately.  He had been wondering how they'd arrived so quickly.  He'd spent three years in jail since that day.  He was doomed for the death penalty for various abductions, rapes, and murders.  He remembered the count clearly, but the officials had offended him by only knowing of eight.  So, three rotten years he'd spent in a cell.  He'd killed many out of anger for Katrina in jail with his bare hands.  Still, it didn't soften the pain any.  He swore revenge on her, and he knew now was his only hope. 
   
Chained to the inside of a prison bus, he stared out the window.  He was being transported to a higher security prison for his "bad behavior."  The hand cuffs had been easy to pick because of the hair pin he'd stolen off the last guy he'd killed.  He'd killed him just to get the pin.  He figured that was a waste of a life, but the man wouldn't hand it over otherwise.  Now, he just had to wait for the right moment, and eventually it came. 
   
Two of the other prisoners began to fight.  Their respective posse joined their corresponding side, and soon almost every prisoner on the bus was involved in the whole commotion.  He found it very hard to keep the cuffs steady enough to look like they were still really on when the man he was sharing his seat with began to sway with the emotional current of the bus.  Eventually, the bus driver came to a halt.  The driver named Alex, as he had noticed while boarding the bus, got up and began harassing the prisoners to stop.  He was near the front of the bus, and so as soon as Alex had passed him, and he was unreachable, he bolted for the doors.  He left the cuffs dangling on the bar they had been wrapped around when he'd run.  Later, he would feel like he should've taken them. 
   
It had been terribly easy to escape.  The other prisoners were being too rowdy to allow Alex to run through them.  It had been a bloodless escape and he was glad he hadn't had to waste more lives.  Especially Alex's, he'd liked Alex for having a picture of his wife with him.  Alex had found his one.   Alex was far away by now, though, and could not retrieve him.  He was long gone.  He'd found a man in the woods he'd escaped into and asked him for money.  The man, who clearly recognized him as a prisoner in his orange uniform, had handed the money over wordlessly.  It annoyed him, though, that the man had not responded to his thank you.  It was getting late out, and he found it easy to break into a store that was on the edge of the woods.  He found himself a suit and put that on.  He figured no one would suspect him in a boring grey suit. 
   
From there, he stole a man's car that had gone in to get his dry cleaning and left his keys in the ignition and went about twenty miles in the direction of the gas station he'd found Katrina at until he found a phone book.  He looked up Katrina's name, and found that her address really wasn't that far from the gas station he'd found her at.  He decided to call her too. 
   
When she picked up the phone, she sounded annoyed but somewhat expectant.  He said hello without giving his name.
   
"Who is this?" She asked defiantly.
   
"It is I, Rainier.  The man whom you are destined to spend the rest of your life with," he said calmly, giving her his last name because he hated his first, although he hated it less than her. 
   
"That's... that's really not funny!" Katrina stammered, the expectant and somewhat annoyed tone replaced by pure fear. 
   
"I wasn't trying to be funny, my darling angel," he replied in a smooth tone.  She hung up.  He was very angry with her for hanging up.  "I suppose I should go visit her since I'm in town again," he thought coldly as he hauled himself into the car he'd stolen.  He figured he should get a shower somewhere first, and thought about where to go as he drove towards Katrina's home. 

Reiner began to wonder about how to approach his Katrina.  He thought of killing her, and he thought of just taking her away.  He wanted to kill her, but he felt that her betrayal to him was far too great that she should only get away with death.  Just as Borges had once said, "Amenace a uno con la inmortalidad."  Although taken out of context, to threaten someone with immortality was far worse than death in real life or in writing.  Reiner knew that.  He also knew exactly how to go about it.  He had met a man in prison who had seen the devil's offspring and they had driven him mad.  The man had served him in hopes of joining them, but the immortals had not wanted him and simply cast him out.  Reiner had learned much from this man before he put him out of his misery.  He knew that once you received the immortality, then you could give it to others.  He knew also that when given, the giver knew where the receiver was at all times, as if by some odd form of motherly instinct.  Reiner knew he would be able to keep and control Katrina forever this way, and that it would be all the better for him, and all the worse for her. 
   
The man in prison had given him a name and address of an immortal of great age and strength.  This immortal was the one the man had served and hoped to gain from.  Apparently though, this man was far too magnanimous to just simply give the man what he wanted.  The immortal only said that he would hate it after some time.  The man in jail had told him all this in hopes that perhaps Reiner would kill him.  The man in prison didn't realize the Reiner only killed selectively.  That's why he had ended up killing him, it was insulting to be so simple minded and then offend him with it. 

He had filed the address in the compounds of his large mind, remembered it, and mapped out his direction.  He made a U-turn at the next light noticing that there had been a cop up ahead who would have surely recognized the plates had he drove by.  In the dark though, Reiner knew he was next to invisible if he kept a good eye out. 

---

Reiner pulled up to the house at somewhere near 2:30 in the morning.  There were lights that shined dimly into the near absolute black of the night, but were cut off almost immediately by the shear oppressiveness of the dark.   The light could escape nowhere near to where he had parked his car.  He had noticed this utter black, and had figured it was part of being "dammed" as the man in jail had described it.  Apparently, when you became touched by the immortality, reality bent around you because you no longer existed as God had intended.  Reiner was no religious man, but he began to doubt his doubts in it.  Perhaps the man in jail had not been completely full of it.

He approached the house cautiously knowing that this was the damned man's hunting hours.  He needed the man the give him his gift, however he did not wish to end up his meal instead.  He knew enough about this immortal from the man in jail to be wary of his step, especially now that he realized that the man in jail had not been making up a lot of what he said. 

"Hello," said a calm and sophisticated voice from behind him.  Reiner started, which had never happened to him before that night, and turned around.  No one had ever been able to sneak up on him so soundlessly. 

"Hello.  I'm looking for an immortal by the name of Aakarshan.  Are you he?"

"My, we get to the point rather hastily don't we?" said the man in an amused tone.  He continued though, "Yes I'm he.  I'll make a rather rash assumption that you want something.  Am I correct?  Please tell me you're not here to avenge Bill."  Bill had been the man in jail.  Reiner wondered why he thought that. 

"If you're wondering why I'm asking, it's because you stink of him.  I can tell that you're not though by the look in your eye," the immortal said lazily. 

"I killed him three days ago.  I do need a favor though.  I wish to be endowed with your gift.  That may be asking a lot, but I need some hefty amount of revenge," Reiner replied casually.  He had no wish to waste time with idle chat. 
   
"I see.  Explain your story, and I'll see if I feel that you are in fact worthy of something as terrible as this."  So Reiner explained his story. 
  
"Well," the immortal replied almost immediately after he was done.  It annoyed him how this being seemed to always be a step ahead of him.  "I do believe that you are in fact, not worthy.  So, good night to you unless you wish to be my dinner.  If you want to die, I will gladly put you out of your misery."

Reiner, who seldom became angry, became somewhat flustered at this being's unwillingness to satisfy his want. 
   
"You will do as I ask, sir," Reiner said slowly, "Or I shall destroy what is so dear to you.  No need to think I bluff, Bill told me everything."  The immortal stopped.  He half smiled and turned back around, and nodded to Reiner.  Reiner knew this weakness, and felt the power of it.  All he had to do was threaten him with death.  Then the immortal would have been damned to hell.  Something a great being like he was simply terrified of.  However, Reiner had the idea that perhaps he was just being generous tonight.  He had not told him the name of his victim though, in his story, he wanted that to be a secret.  He didn't know why, but something in his gut had told him not to mention her name.  Reiner followed the man into his home. 
   
"I'm feeling generous tonight, sir," the man replied conclusively," I will give what you ask of me because I had a good ramble, nothing more.  You could not kill me if you tried."  This, Reiner knew was true.