Vanessa, Tommy, and Mary all grew up in the small town, but Poe, he was the outsider. The son of the English Professor, and he didn't fit in. Tight jeans, his dark hair always hung in his face. When he pushed his hair back, his eyes were the shade o...
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The flu? Sure, he would feed himself the lie, but that little pain in his neck was starting to throb. If Silas had only scratched the surface, how come he felt as though his veins pulsated molten lava? It had to be drugs. Probably acid. Yes, that was what it was. Poe had always heard about people who did acid. They had flashbacks for days, maybe even weeks after first contact. Silas must have placed it in his mouth before breaking the skin. There was no other explanation for what was happening to him, well, none that he wanted to admit to.
Sleeping for what seemed like hours, the sound of the phone vibrating on his nightstand woke Poe. In a daze he grabbed the phone. Not recognizing the number, he let the phone go to voicemail. Not expecting anyone to leave a message, he was shocked when again, the phone vibrated. This time alerting him that a message was left.
Adjusting his eyes, Poe once again checked the screen before sliding to the voicemail. Pushing across the screen to delete, something stopped him. What if it was an emergency? Rubbing his finger over listen was the last thing he should have done, but curiosity got the best of him, and he would regret that moment.
"Dearest boy, you've been thinking about me, haven't you? I can feel you in my blood, and the hunger aches inside of me for another taste," said the voice.
Unable to listen to the rest, Poe pushed the phone under the pillow, holding it down as it finished. Every inch of his body shook in fear, but he felt it too. The aching inside of him. Was that what Silas meant? Of course, it was. What other pain could there be if not for the irrational need to feel the presence of another person. Still pressing down hard on the pillow, he didn't hear the door open. Standing in the doorway of his bedroom Vanessa watched as the boy tried to suffocate his cell phone.
"What the hell are you doing? Your mom says you might have the flu?" Vanessa asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Poe looked at Vanessa like she had three heads when she spoke. Why the hell would his mother allow her in the house when he was sick?
"Yeah, I have a fever and throwing up," he said.
Without being asked, Vanessa shut the door behind her and sat on the edge of the bed. Scrunching her nose, her brow furrowed as she placed the back of her hand on his forehead. She didn't believe for a second that he was sick. He was freaked out about the house, and she knew it.
"You know that I know you're a liar. This isn't sickness. It's that you're just being a pussy about what happened at the house. We all knew you couldn't handle it," Vanessa laughed.
It wasn't the fever that suddenly had Poe fuming. It was that she and the others couldn't stop making fun of people. Even when they were their own friends, or supposedly. Poe figured out long ago that he was just a joke to these people. He didn't fit in with the small-town losers. Never had, never would. If truth was told, Poe never wanted to speak to these people after the day before, but they were his only friends. When you're in high school and don't fit in, you hold onto even those that hurt you the most.
"Sleep, those little slices of death how I loathe them." Edgar Allan Poe
