Until Midnight

Viaducts

Chapter Seven

5:00 PM, Monday, November 15th, 2014

Ridding my bed of Fabrir's dust is a vigorous task, but a necessary one all the same. If my parents happened to wander up here and discover the mess I've made, there would be too many questions. Better I eradicate the evidence quickly, as if nothing ever happened in the first place. 

This, I conclude, is actually harder than it seemed at first. A few strands of vampire guts, mingled with dust, easy to wash out and destroy. Yet it isn't the remnants of Fabrir that make the task at hand arduous; it's the guilt. 

The knowledge that I killed someone who was heartbroken, someone who had a century's worth of pain building within him, breaks me down. Some might say what I did was mercy; I call it betrayal. He told me his whole life story, and I staked him. Yet, I have to tell myself it was absolutely justifiable. He was going to take my life at midnight; I couldn't let him do that. Kill or be killed, they say. 

Yet that thought doesn't make it any easier. At the end of the day, I still took his life. 

Careful not to alert my parents of what I'm doing, I silently take my soiled bed sheets down to the laundry room, and throw them in. Before I threw them in, I had to remove the larger parts of Fabrir not fit for the wash: his heart, a lung or two (I gagged), and other miscellaneous organs. Once I safely stowed them away in a plastic bag, I set them on my windowsill to burn, for the sun was still bright and shining through. 

Now all that remained was the copious amounts of dust settled into my covers, which hopefully the wash will take away. 

I skulk back up to my room, and shut the door quietly. Instantly, a charred, burning smell fills my nostrils. The plastic bag!

I left it on the windowsill, forgetting to throw it out. Quickly, and with stealth, I return downstairs, lurk out the backdoor of the kitchen, and fling it into the woods. Hopefully, no one comes across it soon. 

I return to the kitchen, relieved. Suddenly my heart stops when I see my father, looking at me intently. "Kate? What did you just throw in the woods?"

His expression is kind, yet his tone is more than suspicious. A lump catches in my throat, incapacitating me. What am I supposed to say? Yeah dad, just threw a bag of char-coaled vampire guts in the woods; no big deal. 

I manage to release a breath. "I... well... you see..." I know now I'm doomed. There's no way of explaining it. I can't form a lie quick enough. He edges past me and opens the back door. "Seems like I'll have to find out for myself, huh?" He says, a smile playing along on his lips. I sigh. "Okay," I say. Maybe there'll be a way I can worm out of this. I can lie. But how the hell do I come up with an excuse for throwing a bag of charred vampire remains in the woods? 

I follow him outside, trying to appear as calm as possible. If I show one sign that something's off, my father's paternal instinct will go into overdrive and detect that I'm hiding something. 

He hovers over the treeline, obviously searching for the thing I (tried, anyway) to dispose of. Standing there in the hot (burning) sunlight, it doesn't take him too long to spot it. "Ah-ha," he says, pleased with himself. He walks over to the charred bag, grimaces, and lifts it up for inspection. "What in the hell..." he mutters to himself. I sigh. 

There's only one option; lie. 

"Alright. You caught me. Well, to put you at ease, what's in that bag, or what used to be in that bag, was some letters I received. From some girl at school. She's been... she's been bullying me and thought it funny to send those letters. They were full of nasty things, so... I put them in that bag and burned them." I'm shocked to learn that my lie sounds thoroughly believable.