HAVEN BLACK - complete

VISIONS OF NIGHT

CHAPTER 31 – VISIONS OF NIGHT

Samara had gotten to me in time to catch the vomit that erupted from my mouth in one of the kitchen pots.

"Thank you," I stammered spitting the last of the vile vomit out.

"Sorry Jacob, the fruit was probably really old. I shouldn't have offered it to you," Samara sympathized as she disposed of my sick down the sink. "Come on, we better leave before it gets too dark to see."

"How come? Where are we going?" I asked dazedly as I struggled to recover from the sudden bout of illness.

"Hunting – we need fresh food to eat," she replied handing me a glass of water.

"Oh, um, yeah," I concurred in the middle of a sip of the metallic tasting water. "Do you have another gun?"

"No, just the one," Samara replied quickly.

"Do I need to come?"

"Yes, yes you do."

"I guess you can't trust me, a stranger, to be left in your house alone..." I began softly. "I understand...I'd be the same..."

"No, not just that..." Samara said timidly as she turned her gaze away from me as though deep in thought. "It would be nice to have some... well, company."

"Oh, sorry, of course." I crossed the large room stopping in the center and glanced down the hallway that was starved of light. "It's been awhile... I guess, it would be nice, to err, have someone to talk to... after all the horrible..." I trailed off in lingering thoughts.

"Your shoes, they are by the front door..." Samara cut in, her voice had a distinctive forced tone to it now as if she was now on a mission. "Down the hallway, last door on the right. I'll be right behind you."

Having sensed an urgency in her voice, I nodded and headed down the hallway, opened the door at the end and stepped through into the large room beyond, which I recognized immediately as the room I had stumbled into a couple of nights ago, the night of my near-passing. As I walked across the room towards the front door, I glanced at the stain-glass window and was down-heartened by how inanimate the angel now appeared to be compared to when I first laid my eyes upon her. Surveying the dim room and noticing how dusty the floor felt underneath my feet, an eerie orange light flickered from a candle that sat on a window ledge to the right of the front door casting dancing shadows around the arched entrance way.

I spotted my shoes that sat under the flame and slipped them on, catching a glance at how dirty my feet now were from the dusty floor. The candle flame then bent sideways transiently as a creak sounded from behind me. I turned around to see Samara walking towards me; she now wore a thick cloak over her and she seemed to blend in naturally with the shadows behind her.

"Here, put this on," she said outstretching her hand against my torso. "It was my dad's so look after it."

"Thanks," I said as I grabbed hold of the rough, stiff moss-green duffel coat and slung it over my shoulders.

Samara raised the hood of her cloak over her head. "Hood up Jacob – it helps to camouflage us," she said and as she stepped past me and opened the door ajar; she then peered through the gap as though checking that the coast was clear before she headed outside. "Plus the sun is still out but only just."

We tracked along the cliff's edge within the shade of the trees until the sunlight gave way to the dark of the early evening. Samara came to a sudden stop thinking that she could hear something, but all I could hear was the leaves rustling in the gentle breeze close around us.