CHAPTER 1

　　Prologue

　　“Caw”

　　“Caw”

　　Have you ever noticed a flock of birds singing around you so loudly that it made your head hurt, and then suddenly you hear nothing? So quiet that the dead could wake, and you would hear their caskets creaking as they open them? Or better yet, have you had just a strange feeling that something very bad is about to happen??

　　That is exactly how I felt when I heard the crows cawing outside of my room at the hotel.? One minute they were giving me a migraine and my head felt like it was about to burst.? The next, it was dead quiet, and I could swear I heard a hiss coming from behind the bathroom door. It is so quiet that it freaks me out a little when I get the feeling that “She” will poke out from under the bed or leave a present for me to find in the morning.

　　Looking up from my book, I listen for them again.? I strain my eyes as I try to look out the window to see where they went, but all I see is Darkness.? Seeing no movement, the ringing in my ears starts to get to me.

　　Thinking about it more, I realize that it is just plain eerie, and it gives me the creeps.? Trying to get my mind off it, I decide to go to bed.? As I lie there, I keep thinking about it, how strange it all is. So, finally I get up and watch a little television.

　　A few hours later, I look at my watch and realize that it has been longer than I thought it was and climb into bed after shutting the television off.?

　　"Ugh."?

　　I lay down on a particularly lumpy part of the bed and it pokes me in the back.? Not being able to remember the last time I found a comfortable bed in one of these seedy hotel rooms, I ask myself aloud, “What do I expect?? When you pay 50 bucks for a room that normally anyone else in the city pays 200 for, there must be a catch, right?”

　　Shaking my head, I realize that this time, it ends up that the beds are lumpy and old.? I mean they have more lumps than my mother's mashed potatoes and that's saying something.? Really.??

　　Laying my head down on the pillow, I go through my mental checklist of the room.? Door locked, check.? Windows locked, check.?

　　Did I do a once over of the grounds?? Check.? I think that's about it.? This is something I must do every night, because if I don’t, I won’t sleep a wink knowing that she could show up at any time or place right behind me.

　　The last thing I do before I close my eyes, is count to 20 and then feel myself relax as the darkness takes me, while I fade away.

　　10 Years Earlier

　　Ten years earlier, as I’m driving home from my nephew’s 5th birthday party partially drunk, I happen to notice that it’s getting close to 9 pm and it is completely dark out.? “Wow, where has the day gone?” ?I murmur under my breath, before?turning on the radio and settling on one of my favorite classic rock stations.

　　The whole time I can’t help but to think that this feels wrong. It’s too dark, the moon is nowhere to be found. A little further down the road, while I stare out over the dark highway and watch the shadows move, I see someone alongside the road walking and I immediately slow down.

　　She is a young woman walking alone. I look her up and down and notice right away that she looks like she has been traveling like this for quite some time.? Stopping to help her, I realize that she must be homeless.?

　　Her clothes are all wet, stained, and tattered. Her amazing, blazing red hair is wet too, and before I could ask her where she was going, she opens the door and I find myself face to face with her. The very first thing I notice is that she is so pale, she looks inhuman.

　　As I look her over, I notice one thing very quickly.? Her eyes are completely black, there is absolutely no pigmentation at all.? It’s such a stark contrast to her brilliant red hair, that I must take a second look deep into those big black holes. She touches my hand with something sharp and then I feel nothing at all.

　　I must have been staring for quite a while because the next thing I know, I hear a loud noise and I jump nearly out of my seat.? Quickly looking around, the woman is nowhere to be found, but I have this feeling like I have been lost in those eyes for hours and hours. ?Looking over at the clock on the dashboard, I notice that it is flashing 1 am.?

　　A few seconds later, my phone starts to vibrate against my leg, and I quickly look down at it in surprise.? “Figures, my sister always calls at the wrong time. Why on earth would she be calling me at 1 am though?? I had better call her back.” I say as I scan the area around the car for signs of what happened.

　　Pressing the button to call, I wait to hear her voice, but instead there is only silence.? “Hmm, must be in a dead zone.” I say softly to myself.?

　　Putting the phone down, I drive off after looking around once more to see if the strange woman was to be found anywhere. ?While I drive, I take a mental note of how strange I feel. I must have fallen asleep if I sat here for four hours.?

　　Scratching my head, I murmur, “I knew I had drunk a little at the birthday party, but I didn’t realize I had been affected that much.? I guess it’s a good thing I stopped to help her, otherwise I might have fallen asleep at the wheel.”?

　　As I drive home carefully, I find myself trying to figure out where the woman went to.? Perhaps she found another car to take her, one will never know. But there is something that is still bothering me. What pricked my hand and when it did, why didn’t I feel anything afterwards?

　　Still contemplating it, I pull in the driveway and notice that my neighbor's lights are still on. Their dog Benny, who is always loud, is bellowing out into the night.? I think it’s because he is a full-blooded hound, but at least he is such a beautiful dog with a caramel-colored hide.

　　“That dog just won’t shut up when the moon is full, and he is stuck outside on a chain.” I say as I find myself laughing, just thinking about it.

　　Before I get out of the Jeep, I hesitate for a few minutes because a strange wave of fatigue comes over me almost as if I’m not quite myself. I shrug it off as just being a little drunk.? After all, I did misplace a couple hours where I must have fallen asleep alongside of the road.? When I feel like I can make it to the house, I retrieve my coat from the back seat and lock up the car.?

　　Upon entering the house, I immediately fall to the floor before looking up while everything swirls around me and then I pass out.? Time stands still for me, as I lay there for 2 days.? The only thing that brings me back is when my sister Tara manages to wake me.??

　　Groggy, I look up into her face and I’m convinced, I must still be drunk.? Of course, I didn’t realize it had been days since the birthday party.?

　　“Get up Jason.? What happened?”

　　I try to shake the fuzz from my brain and answer her, half out of it, “I don’t know.”

　　“Well, let’s get you up off the floor and check you out.? Alright?” She looks at me in that way a mother dotes on her child when they have an injury.

　　“Tara, really.? I’m fine.? I think I am just still a little buzzed from the party.”

　　“Jason, you do realize that was two days ago.”? Now she looks really concerned as she helps me up off the floor and to the couch.?

　　Tara is my older sister by a year and three months.? She is 34, and any man would be lucky to have her, but she has yet to find that right one.? She is pale, and it matches with her long dirty blonde hair and her beautiful green eyes.

　　With all it combined, it makes her absolutely lovely to look at.? Her son Max is the love of her life.? Without him, I suspect she would never have been able to get past our parents passing.?

　　On the other hand, at 32 I have had several loves already and honestly don’t want to get in any kind of relationship, any time soon.? I am happy being by myself even though others look at me and think I am weird and quiet, just because I keep to myself. Frankly I could care less if a woman walks into my life.?

　　The only thing I regret is when our parents died, my mother made me promise on her death bed. She made me swear, that I would find a woman and give her grand babies to look down upon.? At that point in time, all I wanted to do was make sure she was happy when she passed away, because she had already been through enough trauma to last a lifetime.

　　Briefly, I remember just before the birthday party I had looked in the mirror at myself and vowed to get a haircut the next day. I don’t know exactly why, but it might have been because my dark brown mop of hair was getting unruly.

　　"I guess that’s out." I mutter under my breath, while smiling.

　　That is the one thing that makes my blue eyes sparkle.? Everyone says that my eyes are the most amazing blue they have ever seen, the minute they meet me.? Even my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Mansfield said so at the beginning of the first day of school.

　　As I snap back to the present, I pay attention to Tara while she helps me onto the couch. I comment, “Thanks. I don’t have a clue what happened,?all I remember from the night of the party, is on the way home I stopped to help a young woman who was walking along the side of the road.? She jumped in and I looked into her eyes.” I pause to sigh and take a deep breath before finishing,?“The next thing I know, it was several hours later, and she was gone.? I am assuming I fell asleep after drinking at the party.? But I am just glad I didn’t cause a wreck if I was that tired.”

　　“Jason!? Did you check to see if you still have your wallet?”

　　I quickly check my pockets to find that my wallet is missing and silently curse myself for not thinking of that.?

　　“Boy, she must have done something to me.” Scratching my head unconsciously, I try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now.

　　“You’re going to have to call the police right away.? I think you should get checked out too at the hospital, just in case.”

　　Glancing over at her, I smile before saying, “Tara, I don’t know what I would do without you.? Who knows how much longer I would have laid there out of it, if you hadn’t come and checked on me?? Thank you, I love you so much.”?

　　Giving her a big hug and a peck on the cheek, I lean back on the couch as she pulls out her phone and calls the police station.? While she notifies them of what happened, I start to feel off. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but it reminds me of when you are in a dream, and you don’t feel anything touch you.

　　I start to stare into the corner after noticing something strange. When I put my hand to my chest, I don’t feel a heartbeat. Am I imagining it, or has she done something horrible to me while I was out of it? As I return my gaze to my sister, I watch her talk to them and after she lets them know that I will be at the hospital for questions, she drives me there.?

　　The minute we arrive, it seems like the air changes and when we step into the emergency room, it is like walking into a movie.? She finds a seat for me and points to sit down. I look over to my side and see a man sitting there with a shirt tied around his lower arm to stop the blood from gushing out.?

　　A young blonde-haired girl who looks to be around ten, is throwing up in the trash can in the corner while her mother tries to calm her down by rubbing her back.? Looking further around the room, I spot another older man in his fifties who seems to be showing signs of a heart attack while sitting there as his face has become pale and he clutches his chest.?

　　“Maybe we better come back later Tara. Mine isn’t an emergency.”

　　Still pointing for me to sit, she shouts, “Hell no, remember the police are meeting you here for questions and you need to be checked out in case she did drug you.? Plus, I am worried about you.? You are not acting like yourself right now.”

　　After rolling my eyes at her and frowning, I place my hands in my pockets and state, “Oh, come on Tara. I may be a little fuzzy, but other than that I am my lazy ass self.”

　　She leans in closer and says more quietly now, “No.? We are staying here no matter how hard you protest.? You’re my little brother and I am really worried about you, so hush.”? She turns around and gives me a fake smile, trying to reassure me that it will be o.k.

　　“Well, alright.? Just remember that the next time something happens, I have your back.” I state rather sarcastically, as I sit hunched over in the chair.

　　As I sit back quietly, I watch her check me in at the counter.? Starting to feel a little bored, my eyes wander around the room again and they settle on a young woman who doesn’t look like she belongs in this room.? I can’t tell if she is a patient or is waiting to see someone who is already in.? Either way, she just doesn’t fit in with this scene.?

　　Staring at her, I notice that she has a red Coach handbag sitting next to her designer high heels.? Her foot taps impatiently, I can only assume because this is taking too long. As my eyes wander up her long pale legs, they stop at the hem line of her short red mini skirt. Might I add, also designer as far as I can tell.?

　　My eyes continue up and over her abundant curves, all the way up to her pouty blood red lips.? I watch her eat a strawberry as intently as a woman who wants to attract attention from a man. Devouring it, she sits licking the juice and then she sucks it in her mouth.? Then, and only then, I notice her pitch black eyes.?

　　When I do, it’s too late and I can't look away.? Her eyes bore into me as they pierce right into my soul, while she stares at me smiling with a sick smile.? Feeling dizzy, the room starts to spin and then I black out.