Tea Break

Workshop Project

I wrote this in a day for Workshop for my creative writing class. So here it is for all of you.

Infidelity and drunk must have been my father's favorite words. He'd come home at night smelling of bourbon and cheap perfume from the girls at the bar. His stumbling steps would echo through the house, seeking out either my mother or I, maybe even my little brother, anyone he could slam his fists into. Sometimes if my mother was still up when he got home he'd start an argument with her. He'd belittle her clothes, the way she kept the home, her job, how she raised us. It depended on how much he drank and if he decided to add a chaser than take a double on the rocks. In his drunken stupors he's make advances on girls. I'd see the lipstick stains on the collars of his button downs, smell the cheap perfume. My mom ignored it, she was too loyal to let him go, to ruin the illusion of the perfect family she tried to have. Infidelity and liquor was what brought my father back to our home, blood dripping from his wrist and an urge to sink his teeth into human flesh. The night my father took his last sip of liquor was the night I sent my father straight to Hell.

What led to his downfall and the ultimate turning into a blood-thirsty beast was the local bar my father frequented. To escape the stress at home and work, he went to a bar or "gentleman's club" as he called it. The name was Prince's. They served upscale drinks and men could see scantily dressed dancers while perched on leather seats in their suits and ties. They catered to the men who needed a release. For those whose work and homelife was too much and they needed a lap dance to make them feel better. What he didn't know was that the club was tied to the supernatural. When he got drunk enough to lose his senses was when one of the females in the club took a bite. He came home that night, stumbling like usual, but skin pale, almost blue and blood drops following his steps.

My mother was his victim of that night. She stood in her silk nightgown, brown hair tossed of her shoulder, unbound and loose, neck bare. She wore no makeup, her image of the perfect housewife wiped away by a wet washcloth. Now the shadows under her eyes and bruises were visible. She sipped a glass of red wine to help her sleep when he barged in. I heard the door slam open and my father's voice, lower in tone. When I heard it, I put my book down and got up from my bed. When my mother's voice wavered, pitched higher than normal and I heard the wine glass break followed by a scream was when I bolted downstairs.

The scene before me unfolded. My mother on the ground, holding her own against my father, kicking and batting him away. There were shards of glass sprinkled around them. The struggle drove my father closer to my mother, his hand reaching for her beating heart. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and I picked up a large shard of glass, sweet Port wine still coating the crystal. I rushed towards the figure who looked like my father and jammed the shard into his temple, forcing the sharp point past skin and muscle to get to the brain.

He let out a guttled scream of pain and claws reached for his head, intent on pulling out the glass. That gave my mother enough time to escape and make a break for the stairs. It left me in the large kitchen with a thing that was once my father. Still, I felt no remorse for the creature on the marble. The once loving father who had raised me had changed to a despicable human being from his first drunken night. From the first time he swung a fist towards me. That is what gave me the ability to grab a steak knife from the sink and drive it into his chest where his heart once beat. From all the novels I've read, all the fantasy and fiction, I never thought it would help me kill this immortal monster in my home.

Blood didn't leak from the wound like it should have. My father simple lay limp on the floor, a knife protruding from his chest and glass sticking out of his pale skin. His once tan skin was now paler, blue eyes turned red and bloodshot. Blonde hair ashen, almost white. He was no long my father, he was a vampire. He had turned into the monster he had been inside.