Wow, been a long time since I've posted anything. Terribly sorry for the delay and for not continuing the Star story. Just not feeling inspired to write about her, for some reason. So here's a fun little side story that will take place during the movie sequence. Not sure if I plan to tie it into the series, but we'll see where it goes and how far I decide to take it. Reviews appreciated!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Lost Boys.
It's the music that gets to you.
The cheery, merry-go-round melody, the smoke machines and the idle victims holding the multicolored reigns of their chosen beasts: wild-horses, polar bears, tigers and lions and all other manner of animalistic horror that can make a person, particularly one whose been ganja-smoking nonstop for the past three hours, nervous.
Not that I was un-use to this feeling---no, no… don't get me wrong.
I'd been here many times before, in the exact same place I was now: sitting in the dull, plastic confines of this carousal, joint curled in the fingers of my right hand while my left was captive in the mouth of the vampire that sat next to me and one of the flunkies he'd decided to drag along. The girl was dropping acid or some heavy shit, her eyes held the brightness of a forty-watt bulb and she hardly reacted to the sight of her supposed "boyfriend" taking the blood of some lowly junkie that had crawled into the seat next to them.
I could only imagine what the night had in store for her, after they'd leave the safety of the brightly illuminated boardwalk.
Not that I could care at this point. Life had become something of a dream over the past few months and as the nights of serving grew more and more frequent, I began, as all ghouls, to question my own sanity.
One continuous trip; nights spent in peril at the fangs of this vampire, stoned and wondering if this was going to be my last time. My last wave of euphoric oblivion that would be drained directly from my veins and into the blood-hungry stoner who kept me in good supply of this shit.
And enough fear to keep me addicted to it.
"Fuuuuuck," low, guttural groan as his mouth released my wrist, leaving two messy holes seeping blood all over my scarf.
I took one last hit of the joint before setting it out against the armrest and flicking the roach over the side of the car. I learned quickly that keeping them was ridiculous: Paul's stash never ran out.
"That's some good shit, man… good fucking shit…" growled out softly as the blood was lazily licked from his lips.
I stared at the wounds in my wrist, wondering how long it would take before I would start to feel the pain and if it would be enough to bring me down from this twisted high. Not to mention, how many minutes of bugging Paul it would take before he remembered to clean the wound. Vampire spit isn't as powerful as people claim it is. It can't heal injuries but it can ensure that they don't get infected or that a person would bleed to death. It was a useful thing in the beginning, but now, unfortunately, the side-effects of my body constantly in taking vampire DNA through Paul's blotched lickings, was starting to take their toll.
I was as pale as he was, shunning the light of the sun and spending my days sleeping until three in the afternoon, after which I would toke immediately upon waking and stay in a strange, mumbling stupor until I was called out to the night and forced to crawl that much higher up on the tower, supporting Paul's habit as well as doing the vampire's idiotic bidding.
The life of a ghoul or whatever they were calling their fang-banger thralls these days.
"You gotta…" I started, growing suddenly distracted by the lights and the woman with red hair looking over at me from across the dancing bears.
"…Gotta… um…"
Why was she staring? Did she suspect something?
Not that I was worried in the slightest about being caught smoking weed on the carousal. Paul's inhuman charm distracted the locals and his fangs took care of any police enforcement that had tried to chase us away before.
Still, there was something inside of me that was on edge. Something that wanted to hide the terrible fact that I was a slave to monsters that should have only existed in bad Hollywood movies and legend. It was the reason why my wrists were constantly wrapped up in bandanas, why my neck was always hidden beneath a scarf. Hiding the scabbed over bite-marks and bruises that hadn't quite healed and never truly would.
Even the ones that had scarred still carried an edge to them; a sensation that if brushed over in the slightest would cause a sudden flush of excitement and unnatural energy. Nervousness, maybe.
"… What was I saying?" I asked, still holding my bleeding wrist and staring at it without a spark of rational thought in my mind.
Paranoia was starting to creep up.
Paul looked up, his eyes half-lidded with a grin stretching slowly across his face.
It was going to be a bad night.
"Look, can you just clean me so I can get the hell out of here? I hate this place, gives me the fucking creeps. I feel that like, at any moment, one of David Bowie's goblins is going to pop up and start singing Magic Dance to me."
He laughed, forgetting that both fangs were still extended.
"Paul!"
The bark was enough to snap the creature from his delusions of dancing puppets and possibly reaching over to take another large chunk out of my arm. All too quickly, all three of us were staring into the razor-like eyes of his "blood brother," David.
Out of all the vampires, I felt a strange combination of hatred, fear and loyalty to David.
Paul was the undertaker, but he was not the executor. He submitted to David as his leader and if the man wanted me gone, the creature would have no choice but to get me shit-faced stoned out of my mind before destroying me entirely.
His gaze tore quickly from Paul, to me sitting on his left and the acid girl that sat catatonic on his right. I tried to become absorbed in something---anything. My sneakers, crouching together in a fearful pile that would inevitably fail if I tried to spring up and jump out of the plastic cart, avoiding David and his subtle cruelties. Those painfully damning, blue eyes.
Paul didn't seem to sense the danger as he leaned back as though to get a better look at his brother and smiled that toothy grin.
"David, chill out. We're just having a little fun, right Nola?"
I didn't answer. My voice was caught somewhere between a smokers cough and the fear that if I tried to say something, nothing but screams would come out.
"Nola? ...Fuck dude, she's stoned hardcore. You should try her," Paul laughed while I tried to summon the power of telepathy and send him every vile name and curse I could think of.
For a moment, I could feel those eyes on me.
"Nola.."
Just ignore him. Pretend to be possessed by the Devil. Nothing behind your eyes but shades of blue and the shadows of the human girl that use to be there. Not the dirty, unwashed thing that was cowering behind the billows of smoke and annoying music.
"Nola.."
Was he saying my name? Or just thinking it? I felt my heart quicken inside my chest, hearing David's voice so close to my ears that blood was starting to rush up to them, creating a white barrier of noise that made it all but impossible to think.
"Nola, look at me."
It was a trick. My eyes remained stuck to the curve of my sneaker, tracing it back and forth…
… back and forth…
..ignoring the sudden fire that seemed to burst inside my veins, raging like hot shards of lead beneath the skin.
I clenched my teeth as my body began to shake. What the hell had I ever done to him?
"NOLA!"
My heart stopped.
I looked up.
I was met with the stare I'd seen many times before, gazing out from a cocksure face that was barely in it's early twenties, the same as his brothers but with a heightened sense of arrogance and brooding that only made him more desirable and infuriating at the same time.
It's weird to feel hatred, pure, psychotropic rage and anger towards something, yet still desire them at the same time. He'd dangled my life in front of my eyes many times before and each time I came out lower and more detached from any sense of human morality I had to begin with. I'd watched him kill random strangers, my so-called friends and people I thought I cared about and that had cared for me, as well. To him, I wasn't much higher than the sand that was caught in the groove of his motorcycle tires.
I was a thrall, pure and simple. A slave to be used, abused, drained slowly and disposed of when the time was right.
I expected him to lash out, to take my bleeding wrist up to pale, icy lips and tear into the exposed wound. Or to insult me, insult Paul and threaten to rip both our spines from our backs. But he did neither.
Instead, I was met with the grave stare that reminded me somewhat of a maimed dog or a child that had just received a beating from daddy's belt.
There would be no games tonight.
Get lost, creature!
The words were sent like a slap to my mind with enough force causing me to jump slightly and stumble immediately to my feet. After a few feeble steps, I managed to gain my balance and shuffling like a skittish animal past David, I dashed from the carousal and the haunting sound of wings that were flapping overhead.
