Untitled

Untitled: Chapter 1

     "Pa Eli? Aunt Karo?" I stepped through the doorway of the sunlit cafe on the corner of Martin and 12th just like I had nearly every day of my life at 8 A.M. but this time somehow felt different. The building was silent aside from the gentle hum of the refrigerator in the back and the distant sparrow song from outside. I made my way over to the register counter in the far left corner and make a left for the kitchen, and the closer I got the louder and louder a faint whispery exchange became.

     "She can't know Elias, she told me not ever to let her. I wish I could but what if they come? We'll have no-" Karolyn paused as Elias raised a hand to quiet her. He and I had locked eyes moments before so I assumed they had been talking about a customer. For some reason, even if I had dealt with the customer myself they didn't like indulging me in their opinions of them. "Aria!" My aunt rushed over to pull me into a soul-crushing hug, forcing a chuckle deep from beneath Elias's whiskers.

     "G'Morning Aria! How was your night dear?" Eli inquired, starting to prep the grill for the day. I just shrugged and nagged a sausage link off the blue plate my aunt had in front of her, winking in response to her silent protests. She let me go and sat down pulling the plate closer to her as if she was a dragon protecting its stash. "Just a shrug? What's the matter, you got bed bugs or something?"

     "No," I replied, quickly chewing the link. "Just some nightmare I keep having, and I got a weird feeling as I walked in today." He froze along with my aunt, his eyes closing tiredly. His gentle brown eyes were surrounded by deeply carved crow's feet and shaded by bushy silver brows. His long matching silver beard was tucked away neatly in a makeshift facial hairnet and hid over half of his face.

     "You didn't hear about what happened last night, didja?" He went back to chopping his onions and I shook my head earnestly, reaching for an apron that was hanging alongside the office doorway. "I guess old Ms. Jenny Riveras found her baby calf.." he paused, searching for the right words.

     "Shredded. Mauled. The police think it's a bear, but Ms. Jenny claims it was a vampire." Karolyn interrupted, her lips pursed and her wispy carrot orange bangs covering her emerald eyes. Elias glared at her before shaking his head and scraping his onions into a container.

     "Like the legend?" I asked. Everyone who had lived in Maloriah in the past hundred or so years had heard of the legend that shared its roots and name with their hometown. In the 1700's when the first settlers had arrived from Europe a small group had been kidnapped by the natives, narrowly escaping a life of pain and suffering. They had made their way up to a small creek near the border of what is now Canada. They placed claim over the land they so fondly called Maloriah, named after the lead adventurer's daughter who had died on the ship before they landed and the hope she had manifested in each of their hearts. Everything went great the first 7 nights, finding an abundance of food, water, and materials to build a shelter. The eighth night however was much more sinister and cruel, taking the lives of fourteen of the twenty-four original journeymen. Some claimed to have heard screaming coming from the temporary lean-tos, while some bodies were never found. Regardless of what happened that night, one man known only as Father Tobias claimed to have been bitten by one of the creatures before disappearing on the full moon days later. No evidence besides a crude confession hastily wrought by Tobias had ever surfaced, leading to the creation of the Legend of Maloriah.

     Elias nodded sourly, tearing strips of bacon apart and placing them into a cast iron pan before him. I stared at the grey tile underneath my boots and processed what I had just been told. "So she's going batty? I kind of had a suspicion you know," I mused mistakenly out loud. As sweet as she was, she was known for her crazier opinions on things. Elias let out a slight rumble, not quite a full laugh due to Karolyn's fiery glare.