Not all endings come with the words ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ complete with a display of brilliant fireworks blazing up the deep, starry background. Not everyone gets the fantasy end with some dashing royal with shining silver armour on the back of a gallant steed, ready to whisk them off into the sunset.
Some stories just end with the night.
Autumn leaves tumbled across the dirty street into the pool of light from the bright streetlamp, flashing bright reds and oranges with every whorl. Renee couldn’t help but watch their graceful movement as she swept past.
“And why not?” Julie asked scornfully and tossed her nearly neon hair over her shoulder then pulled her skull and cross bone tote higher onto her shoulder. A bag of half empty popcorn left over from the movie theatre was clenched in her fist. Julia’s painted black nails and chunky iron rings contrasted starkly against the white and yellow paper bag.
“Because I don’t drink.” Renee’s breath froze on contact with the frigid air, spending only a moment suspended in the air, like a plume of smoke from a cigar, before vanishing. It was early November and the winter chill was beginning to fasten a hard grasp on the tiny town.
Julie scoffed loudly beside her, catching Renee’s slender hazel eyes, “Oh, please! Don’t be such a downer and have some fun for once, kid.”
“Yeah,” Renee began, pulling the folds of her coat tighter, hoping to keep the bitter cold from biting her bare flesh through her flimsy tee. She had dressed wrong; thinking it would be warmer and that they wouldn’t have stayed as long as they had. “Because binge drinking, in my books, is classified as fun.”
“Hey,” Julie stopped her on the side of the dead, deserted street. “Don’t get crabby with me.”
Renee let out an exhausted sigh and her eyes crawled elsewhere, down the street—anywhere other than Julie’s eyes, “I’m not getting crabby with you.”
It wasn’t convincing enough for Julie who crossed her arms and didn’t let them move forward yet. “Really? Because it sounds like you’re getting crabby with me, Ren.”
Renee shattered the sound barrier, her eyes flicking back into Julie’s. Her voice echoed down the street for yards, scaring some birds from their perches in the trees, “That’s because you’re making me crabby, Julie!”
Julie recoiled back a step, the gravel under her half-laced boots crunching sharply. Her eyes were wide but she looked more shocked than hurt. They were silent for a long moment until Renee drew in a ragged breath, digging her hands into the pit of her coat pockets.
“Sorry,” She apologised, her shoulders tight. “I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. I’ve been having recurring headaches for the last week—they’re so bad they wake me up during the night.”
Julie’s lips pursed, her brows knitted. The black number eight ball piercing through her right brow glittered once before the shadow of Julie’s wrinkled forehead snuffed out the light. “Did you go to the doctor?”
“All they gave me was a stupid bottle of aspirin.”
Julie’s eyes rolled, “People are so incompetent these days.”
And they continued on again down the dark road. Few lights were still lit in the houses they’d passed. It wasn’t weird on a Thursday night for the town to be sleepy and dull—the parties didn’t start until Friday night when the sun went down and fire pits could be fired up.
“Coming to my house?” Julie asked as they came to the red and white sign that proclaimed that they had reached Willow street—their street. They lived on opposite ends of the street and really, on different ends of the spectrum.
“No, my parents’ll kill me—it’s a school night.” Renee shot her down and they parted, heading off in different directions. Renee’s parents were strict and if they went to wake her to find that she wasn’t in her bed, she’d never be allowed again. Julie didn’t have to deal with that, having a lax environment and a general go-with-the-flow upbringing.
As Renee got farther and farther from Julie, the darkness began to become more… daunting than it had before. The shadows began to extend and tried to catch her in their dark. The evenly spaced lamps had begun to feel farther away and their puddles of light had been cut in half.
Even the scrabbling of leaves on the pavement had begun to frighten her, spurring her heart into frenzy inside her chest.
Normally, Renee wasn’t at all frightened of being alone in the dark but a disturbance, a shift in the air had happened the moment Julie left her side. The moon had shrunk away and hidden itself behind thick storm clouds, little light passing through the overcasting gas. The breeze had picked up, making the massive pines above Renee’s head tremble.
White lightning struck the land in the distance and the rumble of thunder followed… and suddenly everything was better, more bearable. Drops of rain splatter against rooftops and pavement around her, beating down in sheet from above.
Renee lowered her heavy hood and pulled her long strand of braided red hair down over her right shoulder. She welcomed the rain because with rain came sound—something that darkness alone was lacking.
Cold droplets of rain pounded down on her head, dripping in long streams down her forehead, tickling her ivory skin. Renee closed her eyes and lifted her arms, spinning around and caught the rain with her tongue but bright beams of light shined against her lids.
A little ways down the street, a black Chrysler sat with its lights on. Shielding her eyes, she tried to make out the car. It looked like it’d been through a war zone-dents and scratches and chunks missing from parts of the body.
She didn’t catch a look at the driver before it wheeled away, disappearing down a random side street.
And that was the second Renee realized she had a stalker.
*
A week later, Julie was stuffing a pepper spray can in Renee’s tote right as they got to the front of their catholic high school. The chill hadn’t lifted and it sent many fleeing up the vine covered stone steps into the heated school. Julie and Renee weren’t exempt, flung themselves through the black spear gates that surrounded the school property towards the entrance of the school.
“What the hell?” Renee hissed, pulling it half out of the bag only to have Renee push it back down.
“Quiet with the cuss, Ren; we’re in school now, ‘member?” Julie looked completely different than she had a full week ago. Her blue hair was brushed back into a straight neat fashion on her back and all her piercings, rings were gone. She was in her pressed uniform that included a white blouse, a clean cut blue-gray pleated skirt--and no skulls—saying morning to each and every nun that came even remotely close to them. “And don’t worry ‘bout the spray. My dad’s got connections with the po-po; it didn’t cost a dime.”
“You really think that I need pepper spray?” Renee decided to ignore “po-po” for the time being. Julie leaned in closer so that only she and Renee could hear the conversation, suddenly very riled up.
“You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Ren,” Julie uttered and gestured her finger towards the door they had just passed through but more importantly, towards the beat up black car they both knew was sitting in idle across the street from the school. “That guy has been following you for how long? He could be a psycho!”
She took a deep breath and brushed her bangs from her worried eyes, “I just want you to be prepared.” All Renee could do was nod and try to digest it. She didn’t like thinking about the possibility that the guy could want to hurt her but it was a possibility none-the-less.
They were at their lockers before Renee found her voice, “Po-po?”
“Yeah, I’m trying out some urban slang; how you like?” Julie asked with a wide grin, the earlier conversation forgotten on her part.
“I’m not loving it.” Renee tried to smile back but the more she tried to think about anything other than the thing waiting outside for her, the more she couldn’t help but obsess. Her skin crawled all day and no matter how hard she tried to concentrate on her work, nothing got done.
“Hey,” Renee blinked snapping out of her thoughts as they descended the stairs towards the busses for home. Julie was walking beside her, clicking her eyebrow piercing back into place. “What are you thinking about?”
“You know…” Renee whispered and tossed her head back, her eyes clasping in Julie’s.
“No, please don’t—“Julie read her mind and grabbed her arm tightly, pleading with her. “That guy isn’t safe, Renee—call the cops or something! Just don’t go over there.”
“Ten minutes,” She said. “If I don’t text you the word ‘Pineapple’ in ten minutes, phone the cops, got it?” It had to end. She didn’t want to feel like she was being cornered like a mouse anymore.
Reluctantly, Julie let go of her arm as the first bus departed from its spot, revealing the Chrysler sitting in a vacant printer store lot. She started towards it, striding long to keep her knees from buckling under her. Renee’s blood boiled under her skin and the closer she got, the more she wanted to stop and throw up her lunch.
Then her mind went blank and her tongue swelled, just a pace from the empty passenger.
A glowing smirk shined from the driver’s strong featured face. Not a hair was on his golden head or face. He was big and muscular… attractive but scarier than anything at that point. His eyes were dark, almost black and shadowed, no light reaching them.
“I wondered when you’d get the nerve to come over and see me.” His voice was dark and reminded Renee of an animal’s growl—low and husky. He reached over a thick muscled arm across the passenger side, popping open the passenger side effortlessly with two fingers. “Climb in.”
And she did. No questions asked; it probably one of the stupidest mistakes of her life.
“I don’t usually take rides from, um, strangers.” Renee said and put on her seatbelt, refusing to look back at the yard where she knew Julie was staring.
“Believe me, I’m not a stranger.” He took the car out of park and they rolled away, driving through the streets, not a word being spoken between them. Renee found herself poking at the pepper spray in her bag just to make sure it was still there.
Renee was pulled back into reality when he parked the car, alongside the ball diamond in the town’s park, currently being used for a little batting practice. The noise of the players set her at ease even as he rolled up the windows until only a crack was open at the top.
“So, how old are you, Renee?” He asked casually, folding his hands on the top of the steering wheel.
“I’ll be eighteen in a couple weeks.” Renee replied and a sly smile broke out over his lips. “Look, I thought we could talk about why you’re following me around. So, let’s have it.” She tried her best not to sound timid but she hadn’t done a good enough job.
“Right,” He muttered. “I suppose you haven’t gotten the calling yet.”
“The what?” He ignored her question, looking off into the game of baseball. “Fine… um, what’s your name then?”
That was a question he could answer and smiled again, looking back across at her, “Daziel but you may call me Daz.” After a moment of motionless silence, Daziel began again. “Let’s get down to business then, Renee. You’re a Spirit Hunter and I know you might not understand yet but you’re going to have the intense compulsion to kill me very soon and I want you to know that such ideas are stupid.”
This… Daziel was crazy.
Renee hadn’t even realized that she wasn’t breathing until her lungs began to ache for air. He turned to the window, staring at one spot, holding onto a glimmering spiral ring. He was elsewhere it seemed, trapped in a memory.
“As I see it, Ren,” He began, fixing his eyes on her hard. “You have two options: live or die.”
“It was… fun,” She swallowed hard and felt the door for the handle, gripping the plastic hard. “…talking to you but I’m just going to—“The door opened a crack. A waft of bitter wind blasted her but she didn’t get much farther than that. He reached over and seized the hood on the back of her coat.
It was instinct alone that guided Renee’s hand to the pepper spray in her bag.
Before she knew it, he was groaning and cussing and trying to wipe it out with one hand while still keeping a firm grip on her hood, pulling her back from the door. The zipper dug into her throat, partially cutting off her breath and choked her little by little.
I can’t get away! By now, she was yelling and kicking at the door hinges, forcing the door right back on them. He was trying to turn on the car and keep her away from the passenger side but they were starting to really draw attention from the field.
Renee rolled herself onto her chest on the seat, her feet hung out the door and her hair was twisted in the hood. Then she saw it.
Her heart pounded against her ribs while she watched the white baseball fly towards the rolled up driver’s side window. Her eyes widened. She forced herself to watch, to wait.
Wait…
Thud-thud.
Daziel looked at what she was. Shock robbed him of his grip and he threw up his free arm to protect himself from the impending impact.
Thud-thud.
Now!
The ball hit the glass and it shattered, bending inwards but didn’t let the ball come any farther in at her. With every muscle she could muster, Renee pulled herself out of the seat, out of the car and into a full run down the street.
People were out and walking among the streets, watching Renee run without a word. It was inevitable that he’d catch up. He had a car and even if the window was smashed in, the engine worked fine.
“Get in the car!” He yelled, following her with his car on the shoulder of the road.
“No,” Renee shook her head and tried her best to smile at some bewildered folks she passed. She took a deep breath, rubbing away her tears with her the cotton of her gloves. Gravel spit out from under the slow moving tires, unable to handle the pressure on them.
He tried to be apologetic but he didn’t sound convincing, “Come on, Renee. Let’s try it again, okay?”
“What do you want from me?” Renee asked, turning towards the car. The wind was biting her legs. She just wanted to go home and without him following her there.
“Whether you like it or not, Renee, we need to chat and have a long one this time.” Renee looked away, distress poisoning her face. “How about I leave and not follow you around but later—say eleven o’clock tonight—when I show up, you are to get into my car without a single protest.”
Renee’s heart dropped into her stomach. “And if I don’t?”
He pulled the gear shift out of park and settled a dark pair of sunglasses over his eyes, a sinister smirk twisting his lips, “You’d be surprised how much one learns during a week of stalking—I know your parents car, and what your best friend looks like.” He paused and revved the engine. “So, don’t let me down, Renee.”
*
The light wood floor under Renee’s feet squeaked on every lap she paced across Julia’s bedroom. The mint walls were decorated with glossy framed photos of Audrey Hepburn and other distingushed retro actors with a mix of modern culture and faraway places like a pop art style Japanese character above her wood headboard.
“Spirit Hunter? What’s that?” The only light in the room came from her bedside lamp and the backlight from Julia’s computer screen. It was late and everything had been explained to Julia. There were no secrets among them.
“I don’t know.” Julia shrugged, staring at the screen. After a few quick clicks, she smiled and began to type. “Let’s Google it.”
“I highly doubt Google knows what it is, Julie.” Renee sighed and very seriously, Julia swung around, wiping her smile from her lips.
“Renee, don’t question Google; it knows everything.” She wasn’t serious but she did put a lot of faith in the search engine. Every question she couldn’t solve was often typed into cyberspace and she searched and searched until she found the answer.
Renee was nervous and hadn’t sat down for very long ever since she’d last seen Daziel. Questions burned in her mind, coming around and around like a hamster on its wheel. The thoughts didn’t really go anywhere or settle down like her.
She glanced at Julie’s alarm clock, taking a deep breath and tried hopelessly to stop trembling. It was getting unbearably close to eleven o’clock. Would he know she was at Julie’s house? What if he went to her house and she didn’t go out because she wasn’t there and tried to go after her parents or Julie?
“Find anything?” Renee asked, feebly trying to take her mind off the possibilities.
“Not really… but if we search hard enough, we might.” Julie reassured with a smile and turned right around on her computer chair. “He’s probably going to tell you what it is after he picks you up.”
Renee’s heard thudded dully in her chest, a weird heavy feeling rising in her chest. Dread, it was dread she decided—dread for what was coming. Julie turned on some hard, punk music to help drown out her head and it worked until she glanced at the clock, every forgotten thought rushing back into her head.
10:57 PM.
“It’s time to go outside…” She whispered and took a quivering breath, slowly making her way through the otherwise empty home. Julie followed and took her wrist just inches from the door. Renee reluctantly looked back, not wanting to look in her disturbed dark eyes.
“I…,” She swallowed hard and took a small canister of pepper spray from her pocket. “…I got you a new can.” Julie’s mouth twitched a smile and she stepped forward, embracing Renee in a tight hung, slipping the can into Renee’s purse. Renee felt tears gloss her eyes but didn’t let them fall.
“It’s okay, Julie… it really is. I’ll be fine and I will be back tomorrow morning.”
Julie didn’t fully believe her. Renee didn’t fully believe herself either.
Still, she went out and met Daziel, parked in front of the house and got into the passenger side without a word. He grinned and pulled out into the street, weaving like an expert through the streets as if he’d lived there his entire life.
“Where are we going?” She asked quietly, twisting the smooth fabric of her suede purse on her lap.
“My hotel,” He glanced towards her with an almost proud look in his eyes. “I’ve got a few platters and things set out that we can snack on while we talk.” She didn’t respond and looked back out the window, the horrible hotel in sight now.
It was one levelled and dusty. It was close to getting shutdown for violating many health codes. He parked the car and led her into one of the rooms, her stomach flipping over. The room was dark but lit with at least two dozen candles, shining light on the large plate of cheese and meat beside a wine bottle.
The door shut behind her and the lock clicked closed. Sharp shivers raised the hairs on the back of her neck and she jumped, his arms circling around her, undoing the buttons of her coat and pulled it off for her, bringing her purse with it.
Daziel hung it up on the row of hooks behind the door, slanting under the new weight. Renee tugged her sleeves of her dark gray sweater over her fists. She was still wearing her uniform having not been home.
He held his hand out to the side of the bed, which would have to do as a chair and she sat down. Daziel poured the wine into two glasses as he spoke, “You no doubt have questions,” He began and held a glass out to her which she took, immediately taking a timid sip. It was strawberry and very sweet on the tip of her tongue. Renee nodded once and he continued, having his answer. “So, we’ll start there and work our way from there.”
“What’s a Spirit Hunter?”
Daziel smiled widely, and kicked back in the only chair in the place. He reminded her of a lazy cat with his feet propped up on the table, his fingers dancing over a piece of cheese as if deciding whether he wanted it or not. “Starting with a hard one, huh?” Finally, he picked it up and still didn’t eat it, holding it in his fingers as he spoke. “That suits me fine.”
“Well?” She coax, kind of eager to learn about something that even Google didn’t know about.
“About one thousand years ago, mankind was in ruins. Criminals were running rampant and the world was over-run,” He paused and took a hardy sip from his glass, continuing on quickly. “Something had to be done and so, a convent of warlocks and witches created Spirit Hunters from ordinary but capable people.”
“That doesn’t really—“
“Tah, tah, tah,” He wagged his finger at her and set the glass down, biting into the cheese in his hand. “I’m getting to it, Renee. Be patient.” He scolded huskily. “Spirit hunters are—as I said—ordinary but capable people who are bound to a criminal for all of eternity and keep reincarnating for as long as it takes to kill said criminal and while that happens, the criminal remains alive. It’s one of the unwanted side effects that the council didn’t see coming when they started to bind souls.”
Renee licked her lips and stared into the glass in her hands, trying to stop the goose bumps from rising. Memories of earlier that day when he told her she was going to want to kill him soon floated to the top of her thoughts like the scum produced from heating milk.
“So… our souls are… bound?” Renee asked, watching him out of the top of her eyes. His expression softened instantly as his dark eyes searched her face, his hand grabbing the spiral ring, hanging around his neck.
“In more ways than one, Renee,” Daziel took his feet off the table and scooted his chair closer, their knees almost touching. He set his and hers glass on the table, his hands on her bare knees. “See, the Council didn’t like me more than all the rest of us criminals and devised a horrible plan to make me pay for as long as I lived.” His eyes were wide, sincere and when he gently cupped her cheek, she leaned into it. “They bound me to your earliest version, Daphne… my wife, my mate—anyway you want to put it, we were in love but then they poisoned her… your mind with their magic and made me have to kill her.”
His thumb stroked her cheek slowly and she frowned, her brows pinching together. “I have to kill you?”
Daziel shook his head, “No. You have choices, Renee. You can try to kill me and die a painful death again or you can come with me, live with me for the rest of your life.” Everything was so confusing. Up was down and day was dark—her world had been flipped around with only a few breaths. She had suddenly become a reincarnation of her stalker’s lost lover—which of whom he killed. Renee’s head was spinning and all she kept thinking was that it all sounded like some new age soap opera. “But you don’t have to answer now. Daphne never liked to make rush decisions and so, neither should you.”
“Am I just like her…?”
“You’re a carbon copy of her.” Daziel replied, closing the space between them, his finger tips grazing the skin of the back of her hand, rested open on her knee. His eyes got larger as he got closer, the candle sitting behind Renee flickering light in them.
Renee found herself watching his lips while she spoke, “Hypothetically, I kill you…”
“That’d be the end of me and you. It is rather ironic but no more me means no more reason for you.” Their lips touched while they spoke, heat in her cheeks shocking her at even the slightest touch.
“But…” She whispered, pulling back a little ways and brought her eyes back into his. “If I went with you, I’d eventually die and you’d live to find the next me and make her go with you…” She let out a shallow breath. “Why don’t you just… not track me down?”
“That’s my only offer, sweetheart,” He quietly sneered, pecking at Renee’s neck. “I realize you’re a bit too young to grasp the concept but there are only two choices: Live with me or die alone.”
He slipped the ring from his necklace on her finger. It fit like a glove.
*
A handful of different screams bounced around her head. Showers of tears and blood soaked into the ground at her feet. They were screaming at her, begging her to listen to them and not to him. Not to him… the one who killed them all.
Renee’s red hair covered her face as she woke on top of the hotel bed, light streaming into through the solitary window. A note was lying on the pillow beside her head and she guessed that it was from Daziel, no longer in the hotel room.
Meet me at the entrance of the town’s trails at dusk or I’ll assume that you don’t value your life as much as I thought.
--Daziel
Renee sat on the edge of the bed for some time before finally, deciding what to do next. She returned home and had a shower, changed her clothes and called Julie. She couldn’t face Julie as she told her what was going to go down, how she should act or what she should do.
Whatever happened, she wouldn’t be returning home that night.
Daziel was waiting for her, just inside the stone gates with a large grin on his lips. It was a nicer day than it had been as of late, the sun streaming down through the pines and maple canopies.
A breeze whistled through the trees. It felt like the same wind that had blew the night they had met. It cut through her clothes like a knife, chilling her to the bone. Even the thick fibered jeans couldn’t stop it.
“Ren, I didn’t think you’d show.”
“I did.” She smiled and strode up to him, her heart rattling her ribs but she kept her breath steady. Daziel opened his arms for her, tucking her into his left arm. They kissed like they had the night before; long and passionately.
However, it wasn’t the only thing she was doing.
Hiding in the sleeve of her coat, a silver dagger slide from obscurity and she shuffled to the right. She tightened her fist around the hilt of the knife and counted down from three in her head and thrust the knife into his abdomen about the time she felt the hot barrel press against her side and a loud shot following.
Her eyes flew open, the hot lead searing its way into her flesh. She was in such a state of shock, she didn’t fully feel it but the blood began to pour anyways. He dropped the gun to catch her as she fell to the ground before he could himself.
Autumn leaves crunched under their weight, becoming stained with their mixing blood, soaking into the ground. His arms were tight around her, drawing her as close as he could manage and they laughed, glossy tears falling from their eyes in tiny streams.
“So much…,” She swallowed hard, feeling death start to creep closer, closing Renee’s organ one at a time. “So much for my happy ending.”
“This is a happy ending,” He said quietly, his eyes fixed on the sky above. “It’s the happiest… we’ve ever had.” Her chuckles died and she stared at the sky, trying to keep peaceful from being dethroned by the immense pain rippling through her body.
The night had begun to take over, turning into deep blue velvet. The sun’s rays dragged its fingers into the sky, ripping up the color and left streaks of peach in their wake. They didn’t want to go; it wasn’t time yet.
Renee’s used the last of her strength to turn her head, and listened to Daziel’s heart pound… pound… The darkness closed on her and her last breath floating away with the breeze that followed, sending the blood soaked leaves and ashes in whorls across the forest floor.
Not all endings come with the words ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ complete with a display of brilliant fireworks blazing up the deep, starry background.
Some stories just end with the night.
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