4: Dullsville's Dream Girl

It was three in the morning when we stepped into Grandma's mansion.

We had had a little trouble explaining to the passengers why three coffins were accompanying us on our journey. Nosy humans. They bought our phony story about how our relatives had died in a horrible car crash with suspicion. Maybe they thought we were illegal immigrants smuggling drugs into the country.

The mansion was in poor condition. The yard had grown feral over the years, the windows and the doors were boarded up, and dust monopolized it.

Beautiful, right? I know. I was taken aback at the beauty of it all and just stared at it. My parents were staring at it with a less then favorable gaze, but oh well.

"I call the attic!" I told my parents, and then climbed the stairs with my bags and my coffin on my back.

I half expected Grandma to pop out of the doors and yell, 'hi, sonny!'.

Excluding the dust and the white sheets draping the furniture, it was exactly as I remembered it.

Wind howled and the floorboards creaked. My skin started to crawl, but it was for a different reason then what you'd expect.

"Oh, crap. Why does it have to rise?" I grumbled to myself, referring to the sun that was breaking into dawn.

I dropped the coffin on the hallway floor. Jameson wasn't going to be pleased that I couldn't even make it to the doorway, but that was his problem.

After haphazardly throwing dirt all around my coffin, I kicked off my shoes and sank into the silken interior, closing the lid behind me.

I was feverishly painting, splattering black paint onto the bridge of my nose. It was making me obsessive. Not the painting, but the girl. She stood, a Princess of Darkness, smiling at me. Not with the candy colored smile I had turned down, not with my mother's warm grin. This girl had luscious, full black lips, the color of a lagoon at night. Her hair was moderately lengthy and slightly wavy, a vision of vivid midnight. And her eyes. Those raven colored eyes. They were scorching and beautiful behind the black eye liner and eye shadow, positively striking.

"Alexander," she called, her voice seductive.

"Yes? I'm almost done," I answered.

"Alexander, come over here," she commanded. I obeyed, abandoning my work instantly. Who was this girl, and why is it I felt so . . . at peace around her? She slid her arms around me and hugged me tight.

"I love you," she said in my ear, her eyes smoldering. She caught me off guard, but not in a bad way. A very, very good way.

"I love you, too." Remarkably, my words sounded true to me. And I didn't even know her name.

And then I woke up.

Another evening to myself. My parents had gone off to scout work and Jameson was out and about the basement, wielding a feather duster.

I grabbed my stuff and trudged up another flight of stairs to the attic. This was like a work out for the exercise channel. I was no doubt going to be buff after a year or so running up these steps.

Dust and cobwebs greeted me like a banner when I threw open the door. I wasn't surprised.

Jameson had been in here. He had brought up all the things I hadn't been able to. My portraits, my art supplies, my CDs, my stereo, my easy chair, my books, and my mattress. (I may not sleep in it, but I like to daydream about humanity at least)

I collapsed on to my mattress and flicked on H.I.M. on my stereo. I needed to slow down; my life, my thought process.

I had just found I was engaged, met up with my arch enemy who was also ironically my best friend, and escaped of my own free will to the place I loathed the most as a fugitive to matrimony two days ---or should I say nights--- ago. It felt like my life was slipping through my fingers like sand on a beach.

I switched to my Aiden CD. The lyrics made my subconscious drift away a little more.

You can illustrate your life in romance

But I can show you something so much more

Than words, in my hands.

It's not your best intention now to burn

Your friends. This is your last night, this last

Chance in my hands.

DIE ROMANTIC, ROMANTIC---

Click. I turned it off before it could continue. Wasn't there anything melancholy or something? I'd already listened to H.I.M's 'Join me in Death' and 'Vampire Heart'. Slipknot? No, not head banger tonight. Some 'Nightmare' club techno? No, I wasn't a cyber Goth. Evanescence was the ticket tonight.

I rooted through my collection, choosing the Open Door CD. I put it on just as I heard voices walking past the Mansion. High school girls by the sounds of them; it was only sunset, they were probably coming home from school.

Stay low

Soft, dark, and dreamless

Far beneath my nightmares

And loneliness

I hate me

For breathing without you . . .

I got up to look out the window, music blaring in the background. I wanted to see the stars. Were they the exact same ones I had seen from my old attic window back in Romania? I gently and half heartedly shifted the dark velvet curtains out of the way and gazed upward.

And though I may have

Lost my way,

All the paths lead straight to you . . .

I spotted my favorite constellation; the Big Dipper. It looked kind of odd, but mostly the same as always. The moon beamed down and lit up my face. I couldn't believe that I was actually stargazing in Dullsville. If you had told me where I would be going a week ago, I'd have never have believed you.

Damn it all . . . I missed Romania so badly. I was running away from a place I never wanted to part with.

"Becky, look!" a voice screamed from down below. It caught me off guard and I nearly tripped over my own feet in my haste to get out of the way.

"Oh, no! It's true, Raven. There are ghosts!" another voice sounded hysterical.

I chanced a quick peek around the side of the window. One little look wouldn't hurt.

And that's the first time I ever saw her.

She was beautiful. Amazing. The most stunning creature I had ever had the fortune of spotting in my life.

And here's the weird thing; she looked remarkably like the Goth Goddess from my dream! Exactly alike, actually.

Was I secretly a physic or something?

"Well, this ghost drives a black Mercedes!" I heard her say, pointing at our car.

"Let's go," the girl she was with, a brunette farmer-like girl, was begging to leave.

Hoping to persuade them to get a move onto their house, I turned my light off. Maybe if they thought Casper had left, they'd follow suit.

They did, after a little argument about some party and a guy named Matt.

I couldn't believe it. There was a beautiful Goth girl around my age (always an added bonus if the girl wasn't ancient) and she was living around the same general square area as me.

I sank onto my mattress. There was only one thing I could think off:

Perhaps I should extend my trip to Dullsville. There was an interesting person I was just dying to meet.