Hello everybody!
I worked the first chapter of this story 'cause I was thinking about it for a long time and I needed to write it. The title is An Insane World because sometimes I believe we live in a world like that.
Hope you enjoy the new story and I promise to update as soon as possible.
All this characters belong to Charlaine Harris but the rest of the story is all mine.
Thanks a lot.
Have a nice week!
:)
An Insane World
Chapter One. The Trip
Sookie POV
"Are you sure this is the way?" I asked Amelia who looked very confident of herself. We had left the residence at Harvard early in the morning and it was going to be a long trip from Boston to New Orleans and then Bon Temps.
"Of course I am, Sook." She said sighing. "Don't worry, it's not the first time I do this." Yeah, I knew Amelia had come back home during the past year but she always took a flight so I wasn't quite sure it was a good idea to trust in her. "Also, I know exactly how to read a map. Stop worrying, we're on the right way."
"I would love to believe you," I said rolling my eyes, "I'm serious."
"Relax, Sookie. We'll be at home before you know it."
It wasn't so simple. We were over 1500 miles from home and we only had been in the car for a couple of hours.
"Y'know, we should have taken a flight."
Amelia just grinned and shook her head. "And where would have been the fun in that?" For Amelia everything had to be fun; it was the first and most important and I was surprised that she had passed the course with her lifestyle. There were always guys in her bed and she spent the night at parties in different fraternities and residences. How could she do it? "Think about this trip as an adventure, you know, a couple of friends travelling across this vast and beautiful country with the goal of returning home to spend a great summer. Besides, we have no luggage to carry."
That was true. We decided to send our bags by courier to avoid carrying so many things so we just had a couple of bags and our purses.
"This trip has been a good idea, Sookie, I promise."
Half an hour later my eyes began to weight like a ton and I fell asleep with my head against the window. Not the best position to sleep and I regretted it when I woke up with a terrible neck pain.
"Hello, sleepyhead," Amelia grinned at me as I finished waking up completely. I did not know how long I had slept but it was starting to get dark and we could barely see the road in front of us.
"How long did I sleep?"
"A couple of hours," she said without taking her eyes off the road. "I think you were exhausted. Did you have a bad night?" In fact I barely slept last night thinking about the long trip and I spent most of the night trying to get my mind blank and fall asleep.
"Yeah, couldn't sleep."
Amelia laughed slightly and nodded. "That's so typical of you. You never sleep the night before a trip. I think you get nervous in case you forget something or you're going to be late. But this time you couldn't be late 'cause the car was not going anywhere without us." Amelia was always so positive. I did not understand how she could be so awake after keeping driving for more than four hours.
"Want me to drive?" I asked waiting for her to tell me that she was exhausted but she simply shook her head. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, but I'm starving."
"Yep, me too."
"I've seen a couple of signs so it must have a service area nearby. We could stop for petrol, eat something and drink a big, delicious cup of coffee."
"Sounds great." Coffee was exactly what I needed to wake up completely but my stomach had other plans. We had breakfast before getting in the car but I was still hungry.
We drove for half an hour or so until we saw lights ahead us and parked the car outside the cafeteria. There were trucks, motorcycles and other cars parked nearby so we got out the car and I tried to stretch every muscle in my body at the same time.
"I'm so sore…" I said to Amelia while I was stretching.
"Yeah, me too." She closed the door and we walked into the diner.
It was the typical diner, with neon sign, waitresses wearing pale pink uniforms and most of the customers were men so when we walked into all of them looked at us. All but a man sitting at the furthest table. The lights barely lit him but I could see his deep and bright blue eyes staring at me.
"Sook, c'mon," Amelia and I sat in one of the empty tables and a waitress took our order. We both asked for the biggest burger they had with French fries and huge milkshakes. Yes, it was not the best diet but I was starving and we still had a long way to go.
"This burger is the best I've had in a long time," she said as she chewed and groaned at the same time. "It's amazing, I assure you."
"Ames, you've been vegetarian for too long." The burger was good but I definitely had them better. Amelia was always worried about what she ate and every guy she dated with had some characteristic she found out adorable and always seemed to adopt from them. Becoming a vegetarian was something she decided to try when her last boyfriend convinced her that was the healthiest way to eat without killing innocent animals.
"I know, but it was fun." Yes, it was especially fun when her boyfriend cheated on her with another guy and she decided to take revenge stealing all the vegetables in his freezer and feeding the animals in a zoo with them. "Those animals had never eaten green vegetables before."
We ate and laughed and I enjoyed immensely with my cup of coffee after dinner.
"We should go, it's getting late."
I looked once more toward the corner where I had seen the mysterious man but he was gone. For some reason I could not stop thinking about him – especially his eyes – but when we got in the car I just decided to forget it and focus on the road. Amelia was too tired to keep driving – although said she was fine – so I got behind the wheel and we continued our trip.
"Y'know, I really liked Leslie," she said suddenly.
I frowned and without taking my eyes off the road I asked. "Who is Leslie?" A man? A woman? Amelia did not lock doors to herself when it came to sex so I had to ask.
"Leslie, the vegetarian," she explained. Amelia used to giving nicknames to her partners so most of the time I did not know their names. "He was sweet and attentive," she sighed, "and handsome…he was very handsome."
"Yes, his boyfriend thought the same." I added, laughing.
"That was mean!" She exclaimed laughing. "You're a little bitch, Sookie Stackhouse."
"Not as much as you, Amelia Broadway."
We spent the next few minutes chatting and laughing like the good friends we were since we met in college. I had wanted all my life to get out of New Orleans and studying at Harvard. It was my goal in life and I spent the last year of high school without leaving home and buried under piles of books to get the scholarship that would allow me to study medicine in one of the best universities.
However, Amelia was there for very different reasons. She wanted to get away from New Orleans but especially wanted to get far away from her father, Copley Carmichael. He was a ruthless businessman who was always looking for the best chance to win the most money possible and wanted his daughter to be exactly like him. Unfortunately, Amelia had other plans and was always most interested in sex, have fun and spend her father's money without worries. But Copley was not willing to let Amelia being an obstacle so when he told her to change her lifestyle, marrying to one of his partners and raise a family it was too much for her and she left home. She had enough money to do anything and decided to go to Boston and study literature at Harvard.
"I'm so glad we're in this together," she said waving her hand between us. "I would not have done it with anyone else." If I hadn't been in front of her having dinner I'd swear she was drunk but unless she did it without me notice Amelia hadn't drunk a drop of alcohol.
I was sure it was just one of her moments of talking about feelings so I just nodded in silence.
"You're my best friend, Sookie, you are like my sister and you don't know how much I appreciate you let me stay at your home in Bon Temps because I couldn't bear to come back to home and see my father."
"I know, Ames."
"He doesn't understand me." I had heard those same words many times before and I knew the rest of the story word for word but Amelia obviously wanted to tell me again so I act as a good friend and just listened to her. "I'm not even sure he's my father at all."
"He's your father, Ames."
"I know," she sighed dramatically, "but we are soooo different… We have never been able to understand each other, not even when my mother died." If I had learned something since I knew Amelia was that she and her mother were very close. "She always got everything to be normal at home, y'know, we were a normal family but when she died…I dunno, I think everything else died with her."
"Ames, you and your father are very different, that's all."
"No, it is much more than that. I know he can't stand me and we've barely spoken since I left. He called me a couple of times but I said that I was too busy with classes and stuff so they were just a few minutes." I knew Copley had tried to maintain contact with his daughter even if she had gone so far from home but Amelia tended to be too stubborn so none of them would apologize to the other.
"Don't worry about that now, 'kay?" I said as I squeezed her hand tightly. "We're in this together, we've always been together and when we are in Bon Temps will continue being together."
"You promise?" She asked, smiling weakly.
"Of course I promise."
Amelia fell asleep minutes after our conversation and I turned on the radio to distract me. It was hard to find good music but I finally found a classic rock station and I hummed with Rolling Stones until the song ended.
Although I knew Copley was concerned about his daughter I was not going to get on his side against Amelia. She needed me and needed a friend who heard her and that was me.
I hated driving at night and especially on a road next to a forest. It was like out of a movie and we had not crossed with any other car since we got back to the road after dinner.
It was weird.
Amelia woke up an hour later and looked out the car window even though it was too dark to see anything.
"Where are we?" she asked as put her feet on the dashboard. "I didn't see that forest before."
"Yeah, I know, it's immense."
Suddenly lights appeared in the rear mirror and realized it was the first time I saw another car on this road since we left the café.
"I haven't snored, have I?"
I couldn't help chuckling. "No, you haven't snored." No matter the time or place, Amelia could always make me laugh with a single comment. "But I'm glad you're awake, driving alongside that forest is making me nervous."
"Why? It's only a forest."
"I know, but…it's like there's something more." I said laughing. "I can't explain it and it's probably nonsense."
But I kept thinking there was something else. Maybe I read too many stories and seen a lot of horror movies and I was letting myself go for it on a lonely road, with a creepy and dark forest around us.
"Don't worry, besides, we're not alone on this road." She said indicating with her thumb the other car. "I don't think this forest is so big but…" and suddenly the car made a strange noise and smoke started coming out of the hood.
"Oh my god…" we said at the same time as the car behind disappeared leaving us abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly the forest seemed more frightening and we couldn't see anything around us. "What the fuck has happened?"
"Calm down, Sookie." Amelia was trying to stay calm but I was sure she was just as scared as me. "I'll try to call someone."
"Who are you gonna call? We don't know anyone who can help us…wherever we are. We can not call anyone!"
"Sookie, calm down!" she said firmly. "We can call the police and…"
"And say what? We have no fucking idea where we are. Damn! We are lost in the middle of fucking nowhere and the car is broken. What the hell are we going to do?" I was hysterical, especially pissed because I could not believe this was really happening. "We can't call anyone, Amelia. We are alone."
"I know we're alone, Sookie, but we can't our heads, okay?" I tried to breathe normally but it was not something easy. "We need to calm down and think about something, okay?"
"Okay." But I could not think of a solution. I did not think there was any way to get out of this road without a car and I did not like the idea of walking in the dark. "What do we do?" I asked more calmly.
Amelia stared at me and I knew she had no idea what we were going to do.
"We should leave the car here." She said no more.
My eyes opened wide. "What?" I thought I was imagining things.
"We can't stay in the car and wait to miraculously fix itself." The car was safe. Walking through a lonely road was a bad idea. "We can write a note and leave it on the windshield in case anyone finds the car, y'know, a phone number."
"No!" I yelled. Amelia looked at me like I was crazy but at least I was not thinking of absurd ideas. "We can't leave the car and walk no more, okay? We have no idea where we are and it's too dark."
"Alright, what do we do then?" she asked me. "Because we can't stay here forever, Sookie."
That was a good question. What were going to do?
"We can take a look at the engine, maybe it's nothing serious and…"
"Sookie, do you know anything about cars? 'Cause I don't know a shit about cars." Why she couldn't have dated with a mechanic who had taught her to fix a damn car? I was beginning to lose my temper. "Hey, let's face it, none of us would be able to fix the engine and I don't anyone is going to appear to help us so I'm afraid we're alone in this."
I did not like this at all. It was like the plot of a bad terror movie in which two girls are in the middle of a road not knowing what to do and waiting for a madman appearing from the forest with a chainsaw.
"We gotta go." She said staring at me.
"I don't want to walk out there, we don't know if there's some place close and it's dark."
"Hey, I know this sucks, okay? But we have no more options." She took my hand and smiled. "We are together, that's what matters, and while we're together we'll be fine, alright?"
I could only nod.
Amelia was right, we couldn't stay in the car waiting for someone to come to our rescue so we took our stuff, left the car unlocked and the keys inside and wrote a note with both phone numbers and began walking in the same direction we had been driving.
"Are you okay?" Amelia asked me while we were walking hand in hand.
"Yeah."
"Don't worry, Sook, sooner or later we'll arrive at some café or gas station and someone will help us, okay?"
"Okay."
We walked and walked and walked and the temperature was colder. Luckily we had a couple of thick jackets with us and we put them on to keep walking.
"I can't believe it's so cold in June, it's weird." I said as I rubbed my hands together for warmth.
"I know, but as long as we keep walking we'll be fine. Don't worry, it'll be dawn soon and we'll get to see something on this damn road."
I was exhausted, starving and my feet were killing me but I knew Amelia was feeling like me and she did not say a word about it. I wanted to be positive and believe we would arrive to a place where someone would help us, we'd get the car back and return to Bon Temps remembering all this as a simple story.
"We should get some rest," Amelia said, stopping and throwing her bag on the ground. We decided to sit and rest for a minute and think about what was happening. "This is crazy, isn't it?" she muttered laughing. "I feel like an idiot right now sitting here in the middle of…nothing and freezing my ass when…well, I think I messed things up."
"What are you talking about?" I asked her confused.
"You wanted to fly home." She said, sighing heavily. "I'm so sorry, Sookie, we should have caught a plane and at this time we'd be at home, sleeping and yet…" She began to mourn and I knew she felt guilty about what was happening.
"Ames…hey, I don't blame you for this, okay?" I whispered as I put my arm around her shoulders. "None of us could have known this was going to happen, do you understand? So I don't want you to feel guilty or cry for all this 'cause it's been nobody's fault." Of course if we had flown to home none of this would have happened but I was sure Amelia was feeling too guilty so I decided not to say a word about it. "Don't worry about anything. Nothing's going to happen and I'm sure we'll find a way to get out of here, okay? Surely dawn will be less frightening." And we laughed like fools.
"Come on, we must keep walking." I got off the ground, wiped my pants and helped her up. "Let's get out of this damn road."
We kept walking, faster this time, and still holding hands. We had to support each other as we had always done and more than ever now.
"Don't tell my father about this, okay?" She laughed. "'Cause I'm sure he would remember it for the rest o my life and I assure you that I couldn't stand it." I couldn't but chuckle because at least we were still keeping our sense of humor.
"Yeah, I'm sure he would." And we kept walking.
"But right I would like to say him that I'm not a little girl anymore," she began, "y'know, I know how to take care of myself and I don't need him or his money to keep living my life like I'm doing it."
"Parents can be insane, Ames, we both know that."
"No." She answered quickly. "Your parents aren't. Your family's great, Sookie, is the kind of family I've always wanted. Your Gran…god, when I'm with her is like being with my own grandmother. She treats me like she knows me perfectly and makes me feel loved. It's something I've never felt before with my father." I wanted to tell her that she'd always be welcome in my house and she could stay forever but I was sure she already knew that.
"Y'know, my parents are overprotective with me and that was always something bothered me." I said trying to change the subject. Amelia was feeling very bad and I wanted to cheer her up. "Jason did everything he wanted all the time and they never punish him for it but I just couldn't go anywhere alone. It was kind of frustrating."
"Jason knows how to defend himself," and we laughed at the same time. "Besides, what would make a girl alone in Bon Temps?" My family had an old and huge house there and I loved it. "There are not many places to go."
"Hey! Bon Temps is not so boring." I said trying to defend the few fun things you could do in a small town. "And Shreveport's close and fun."
"Then why did you live in New Orleans until you went to college?"
"Okay, you're right. But I love Bon Temps, can't help it." I said sighing and remembering all the good times I had lived there since childhood. "There are not gossip neighbours bothering you all the time, I can get up later in the morning and my Gran always makes pancakes for breakfast."
"You can also sunbathe naked," Amelia said quickly."
"What?" I asked, laughing. "Please don't tell me you did that when we were there last summer." Amelia was able to do anything but I doubted she'd be able to sunbathe naked with my brother around.
"I did."
I burst out laughing while trying to remember when she'd be able to do it. We were always together and sunbathe was one of my vices so most of the time we had done it at the same time.
"When?"
Amelia smiled wickedly at me and I was not quite sure what that meant. "Do you remember the day when you and your dad were to Shreveport to buy a chainshaw?"
"Yeah…" I said doubtfully. It was a great day. I loved spending time with my dad and after buying the chainsaw we went for ice cream. "Please don't tell me it was then."
"Yeah, Gran and your mom went to buy and…"
We were laughing non-stop, remembering the good times we had spent last summer when suddenly heard a strange noise that seemed to come from within the forest.
"Shhh…" Amelia shushed me and we froze, without moving a muscle and holding our breath. "Did you hear that?" It was a noise I could not explain, as if it were a breath but was something else. Something different. And it sounded very close.
"What the hell was that?" I asked in a whisper.
Amelia just shook her head and we moved until we were in the middle of the road.
"We gotta go." I couldn't agree more.
We began to walk fast – until we chose to run hand in hand – but that strange noise seemed to follow us everywhere. It was as if it were on our side, behind and in front of us at the same time.
"Run, Sookie, run!" We were running as fast as we could but everything seemed useless, when suddenly I felt something behind about to reach us and lights getting closer until I pushed Amelia and I to the ground before a truck run over us.
We were on the ground, not knowing what was going on and it was then when someone got out from the truck with a shotgun and fired several times up in the air.
"Are you okay?" He asked, and although I couldn't see his face I nodded vigorously. "Get in the truck." It was him. The mystery man at the café, the same man who had looked at me with those piercing blue eyes.
"Ames, come on, get up."
"Sook, what happened?" Amelia could hardly talk after what had happened so I helped her up off the ground, grabbed our stuff and got in the truck. In any other situation I'd been afraid – terrified actually – to get in the truck of a stranger on a desolate road but I'd have done it a thousand times that night.
"What the hell was that?" I asked to our mysterious savior while Amelia was laying in the back seat resting. She had beaten her head but after checking she was out we left from there as fast as we could. "Who are you?"
He did not answer and I began thinking that maybe had not been a good idea to get on that truck.
"Thanks," I whispered while was looking down to my lap.
"I'm Eric."
"Sookie." I looked to the backseat and saw Amelia's eyes were closed. "And she's Amelia." His eyes never left the road and although I felt better because I wasn't walking down the road, we knew nothing of this man or his intentions. I knew nothing but I had to ask.
"What was that?"
Eric did not immediately respond but frowned and I knew he was thinking of an answer.
"Nobody knows."
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said." He replied dryly.
"Well, I know it was something alive 'cause I could feel its breath and it moved quickly. It was like being everywhere at once." Maybe if I told him what I knew he would give me some answers. "Whatever was that thing, was stalking us."
"You're alive, you should be glad."
"I am. Believe me, I'm glad I left that road and having survived whatever that thing is but I need to know what it was. What the hell was that thing and why was it watching us?"
"The evil."
"What?" I almost whispered.
His eyes were blocked on mine and I could feel them as if they were inside of me.
"That thing is the evil."
I really hope this is not too insane for you to read but I promise it'll get interesting in a few more chapters.
:)
