A year and a half ago.
"Are you Walter Burgess?" A short balding man in a coke bottle glasses, carrying a brief case, turned around at the sound of his name. He was a middle aged, pathetic looking accountant that went home night after night to a loveless marriage, so when a leggy brunette asked who he was, he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She was svelte where he was pudgy. She was calm where he was breaking out into a light, nervous sweat. She stood there, looking intently at him, her arms crossed over her chest, waiting for his answer. He thought just this once, he'd go out to the bar with everyone else after work instead of just lumbering home. Perhaps one of the guys in the office thought this was a nice joke to play on the new comer. She was beginning to look impatient as he tried to find his voice, her eyes turned black. Her entire eye! No pupil or white or iris, just straight black. Then she raised her hand at him, palm facing forward.
"It's just a formality anyway. I don't have all day." There was a bright flash that seemed to come from the woman's hand and Walter threw up his arm to cover his eyes. Then he felt like his skin was crawling. It itched and burned and was immensely painful. He'd never felt anything like it in his life. A scream ripped from his lips as his body seemed to melt back into the wall behind him. There was a distinct impression of the outline of his flabby, middle aged body on the wall, made of blood, like he was just smear on the wall and never a person.
"One down, a couple hundred more to go." The leggy brunette smirked and turned around, walking away, the only sound were her heals clicking on the cement as she disappeared into the night.
Now
Cassandra Taylor had always had fabulously bad luck. In fact, her entire family was chronically unlucky. Her sister would fall on a random banana peel someone had tossed onto the sidewalk as she got out of her car. Her uncle would do everything he could to avoid any superstitions, like walking under ladders and black cats and opening umbrellas indoors, but somehow, bad luck would find him. Like a hole in the roof on a very rainy day, said roof caving in when he went up there to fix it. It was something they had all come to live with and take in stride. Cassandra herself was always a bit more special than her sisters. From a young age she would have "dreams" that she noticed would come true with alarming frequency. She also learned not to tell anyone about these dreams but still guide her family in the right direction to avoid some particularly nasty outcomes. Now, however, was the first time she'd dreamt of her own demise.
She was running after someone, hand outstretched toward their back. The person off in the distance wore a worn leather jacket, shoulders hunched to ward off the biting cold. She called out, though what she said she couldn't hear. The person turned and she saw it was a man, his face partially hidden in shadow, but his short brown hair and hazel eyes caught the light in the dimming day. His arm raised up and in his hand was a gun, a revolver with a long, narrow barrel. Cassandra froze. He was her friend, which was the feeling she got from him. What was going on? There was a muzzle flash and she felt the bullet slam into her chest. Into her heart. Slumping to the ground, she felt the life seep out of her as the man in leather walked over and leaned down next to her. He whispered something in her ears as her eyes closed forever.
Cassandra woke up screaming, causing her oldest sister to come running into her room. Cassandra herself was looking down at her chest for any sign of mortal injury. She tugged at the collar of her tank top to find a baseball sized bruise on the left side of her chest.
"What the hell is that?!" Cherie, Cassandra's older sister asked, looking at her sister in concern. The trade mark red hair that ran in the family was a mess, looking like a rat's nest on top of her sister's head. If Cassandra hadn't grown up with seeing that every morning, she would have screamed again. But right now she was too preoccupied to comment on her sister's choice of hair styles.
"That's never happened before," She muttered to herself, gently touching the area around the bruise.
"What's never happened before? What's going on?! Are you on drugs?" Cherie had both hands on either side of the door frame, holding herself up as she glared suspiciously at her sister. Another tuft of red hair could be seen peeking out from behind her shoulder, looking wide-eyed and curious as to what was going on at 3:30 in the morning.
"No, no. No drugs. Bad dream, very bad dream." Cassandra leveled a gaze at Charlie, who was still hiding behind their older sister. Charlie knew about Cassandra's bad dreams, and what they meant, which also told her to be careful the next few days. They would talk in the morning about it. Cherie's gaze just softened and she nodded, thinking she knew what the dream was about.
"I musta hit myself or something when I was thrashing around. Sorry." Cassandra looked sheepishly at Cherie before sinking back down onto the bed. Cherie just shook her head and let go of the door frame, her shoulders slumping with released tension.
"Just…..get some sleep will you? We all have to be up early tomorrow and this isn't helping." Cherie sighed and turned to go back to bed, grabbing Charlie along the way and herding her to her room.
"Yeees master….riiight awwaayy master….anything for you master….." Cassandra called after Cherie in a poor attempt at an Igor impersonation. Cherie just tossed a glare at her over the shoulder as she went back to bed with her husband. Cassandra rolled over and attempted to get back to sleep but she had the dream several more times that night. Never once did she hear what he was whispering to her. The last time, she thought she had something when she heard him start to say "Have some sympathy, and some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste. Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name." Then she realized he was singing and he sounded an awful lot like Mic Jagger. Groaning she sat up as the song ended on her clock radio and the announcer came on with a voice way to cheery for her liking this early in the morning.
"And that was The Rolling Stones with Sympathy for the Devil. Up next we have some Nickleback lined up for you as well as Taylor Swift, so stay tuned. But before we get to that it's time for some local news. Another family was found murdered last night, the latest in a string of murders occurring within the past year and across the nation that have investigators baffled. Reports say that the remains of four bodies were found early this morning by a family friend. In other news, police raided a-" Cassandra reached over and hit the clock radio and swung her legs off the edge of the bed, letting her toes scrunch in the carpet before standing up with a yawing stretch. She went through her morning routine, forgoing the shower because all she had today was a midterm and Charlie would be up soon to whinge about it if she wasn't in on time. Apparently fifteen year olds needed lots of time to look like they just rolled out of bed.
Throwing on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that said "Good morning. Let the stress begin" on it, she grumbled incoherently as she stumbled down the stairs and groped around the kitchen. She was always first up so it was her delegated duty to make the coffee. She did it automatically; put the water in the coffee maker and threw two scoops of coffee grinds into the filter and hit the on switch. Shuffling around the kitchen, Cassandra felt like a zombie, waiting for the coffee to perk. She numbly opened the pantry and grabbed a box of cereal, pouring into a bowl before shuffling over to the fridge to grab the milk.
By now, the smell of coffee had permeated the whole house, and had drawn Cherie and her husband from their cave. Cassandra grabbed a cup from the cupboard and filled it with the sweet nectar of life, coffee. Taking a whiff, she could feel her body come alive and toss off the zombie-like state with every sip she took. Her sister stumbled over in her fuzzy robe and Oscar the Grouch slippers, crazy bed head ever worse than last night, followed by Steve, his short black hair also sticking up at odd angles. He scratched his bare chest before reaching up and grabbing two more cups as Cherie grabbed her flavored coffee creamer from the fridge. Cassandra leaned back against the counter and watched the transformation that came over her family because of a little java bean.
"Morning," she grinned at them. This family loved coffee, was addicted to it. And it was hilarious to watch how they came alive after a couple of sips, it was like a cartoon.
"Morning Cass. Hope you slept better after your little dream last night." Steve said as he sat down at the table.
"Yup," She lied as she downed the rest of her coffee, looking at the clock. "Okay I have only a midterm today, so I may get home in time to take her royal highness to school." Cassandra looked pointedly at the ceiling, hearing the shower turn on as she did so. "I'll see you guys later."
About forty five minutes later, Cassandra stretched and checked her watch, smiling to herself. She had finished her midterm with enough time to take her little sister to school. It would be the perfect time to talk about her dream. Today was turning out to be a rather nice day, even if she had to watch out for men in leather jackets. She walked back to her car in high spirits. That's when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and smiled as she looked at the caller ID. Flipping open the phone, she grinned.
"Yeah? You done with your shower beauty queen?"
"Oh har har, Cass. Are you heading home? I hear you get to take me to school today." Charlie's voice filtered through the ear piece. Despite the hard time she gave her sister, as was her right to do, she loved her.
"Yeah, I'll be there…..in a little….I'll call you back, 'k?" Cassandra was almost to her car when she saw two guys walking toward her. They seemed to be arguing over a piece of paper. But that's not what she was looking at. The shorter of the two had cropped brown hair and a worn leather jacket, he looked up to find her staring and he smiled at her with a Casanova grin.
"Cass? Cass, you there?" She could hear her sister's worried tone coming from the phone as she turned to run. But as she turned, a painful headache brought her to her knees, the phone skittering away across the ground. A pained gasp escaped her lips and she grabbed her head as a vision swam before her eyes.
Blood, blood seemed to be smeared everywhere in the room. The room itself looked familiar to Cassandra though the image was so blurry she could barely make anything out. Certain things started to become clear, like the back door. It had been shattered, glass twinkling in the light that filtered through. The blinding pain made it hard for her to focus, but she tried. She took in the room, the way way the couches were set up to face a tv in the corner. Next to the tv was a bookshelf topped with photoframes but she couldn't see any of the photos; they were all covered in blood. That's when she noticed the two people in the room. A tall brunette in a black tank top and jeans was standing over someone. That's when she saw the beat up Oscar the Grouch slippers and the fuzzy robe. Cherie was on her knees begging for her life and she screamed as a bright flash of light came from the woman and her sister was reduced to nothing but a smear on the wall. Two words echo over and over as the pain began to fade. "Cassie's coming. Cassie's coming."