Chapter One.
xXx
One Week Later...
Haley James stood there looking at all the different people who had shown up for the funeral. People who had no business even being there in the first place. Friends of her cousin's boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend as the case may be. Most of them didn't even know her cousin Peyton. And some of them didn't even like her cousin. As for the rest... well, they weren't worth mentioning. Turning her head to the left, she saw her uncle trying his best not to cry. He was always trying to be the strong one for their family. Especially after his wife, Anna had died in a car accident when Haley and her cousin were only seven years old. Then, not even three years later; more loss befell the James family. When her mother and father were both killed instantly by a drunk driver, on their way back from a weekend in Charleston.
Needless to say she'd had a fear of driving ever since.
And now at the age of nineteen, her cousin was dead too. Not by a car accident though. But by something else. Someone found her body in an alleyway next to her apartment building. Most of her flesh had been eaten by one of those... things.
Ghouls.
They were all over the news these days. Strange beings who could only survive on human flesh. There had been several murder cases to do with them recently. If it hadn't been for dental records, the police would've never been able to identify Peyton's body. But it wasn't even a ghoul who had killed her cousin. The police wrote it off as a suicide, saying she jumped from her apartment building that night. But that was bullshit. She knew her cousin better than anyone. Peyton was dark, sure.
But she wasn't suicidal.
She turned to face the front again, just as they started to lower her cousin's coffin into the ground. "I can't do this." she told herself, before quickly walking away from everyone. She could feel all of their eyes on her, but she didn't care. She refused to look back, as she walked to where her uncle's car was parked.
She stopped walking when she noticed someone with dark hair, leaning against one of the cars near her uncle's, with his head down. She didn't know him personally or anything, but she'd seen him around campus before. What was he doing here? Had he known Peyton or something? Or was he another one of the onlookers who just showed up for 'the funeral of the girl who'd been eaten by a ghoul?' If that was the case, she'd tell him exactly where he could go. As though he'd read her mind or something, he looked up at her. She could see different emotions running across his face. But the one that stood out the most, was the fact that he looked almost... afraid.
Did he know something about what had happened that night?
Before she could even get a word out, he quickly took off in the opposite direction, between the parked cars. Haley quickly tried to follow him. But when she managed to maneuver herself through the cars, there was no sign of him.
At all.
He'd completely vanished. Like he'd never even been there in the first place.
"What the hell?" she was very confused.
xXx
As soon as she was alone in her room, Haley reached behind her back to pull down the zipper on her black dress. She quickly pushed it down over her hips to the floor, before stepping over it towards her dresser. Finding a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, she quickly changed. She picked up her dress and dumped it into the laundry basket. Picking up a framed photograph from off her night-stand, Haley sat down on her bed. Looking down at the picture of herself and her cousin; smiling for the camera in their blue robes on graduation night, she couldn't stop thinking about what had happened to Peyton.
Who murdered her cousin?
And why?
xXx
Taking a deep breath before reaching for the handle, Nathan Scott pushed open the door to 'Karen's Cafe.' Looking around the place, it didn't take him long to spot the girl he was looking for. He quickly made his way over to her. She spoke before he had a chance to sit down.
"You're late." she told him, not looking up from her crossword puzzle.
"Yeah." he took his seat opposite her. "Sorry about that. I uh... got held up."
His hesitation made her look up at him. "That better not mean what I think it does, Nate."
He looked away guiltily, from her accusing blue eyes. "Lily please don't-
"You went to that girl's funeral, didn't you!" she hissed at him, keeping her voice low. He didn't need to reply. The look on his face told her everything she needed to know. "Have you lost your fucking mind!? Why would you be so stupid!?" taking a deep breath whilst running her hands through her long dark hair, she tried to calm down. "Tell me you didn't stay for the whole thing, at least?"
He looked back at her. "Of course I didn't." he told her, annoyed that she would ask him that.
How dare he get all pissy with her. He was the careless idiot here. Not her. "Good." she nodded to herself; pleased that he wasn't completely incompetent "So no one saw you then." Again. The look on his face told her everything. "Someone saw you!" she hissed at him again, only louder this time. And the few people that were still in the quiet cafe, were now looking in their direction. Including the owner, Karen. "Damn it, Nathan!" she lowered her voice again. "Why don't you just make a flashing neon sign saying ghouls, and point it right at us!" she took it back; he was definitely incompetent.
Karen quickly made her way towards the two nineteen year olds. "Is there a problem here you two?"
"Oh no, everything is fine." Lily replied with total sarcasm. "Other than the fact that my little brother is a complete moron." she leaned back in the chair with her arms folded across her chest. "What happened to always being careful, huh? What happened to our rules, Nate? No one finds out about us. No one gets hurt. And no one gets hurt if-
"No one finds out about us." he finished for her.
"Exactly."
Karen looked at the two siblings with panic in her eyes. "Someone found out about you?"
"No." he replied.
"Not yet. More like. But it's only a matter of time, right." and with that said, Lily Scott grabbed her coat, before storming out of the place.
Nathan sighed in frustration at how dramatic his sister could be. They were twins. And were identical in a lot of ways. Yet they couldn't be more different. Where he was always drawn to how humans lived. Lily was more than happy to stay as far away from them as possible. In fact... The only human he'd ever seen his sister interact with was their mother.
Karen Scott.
She wasn't their real mother. Biologically speaking that would be impossible. But she was the only mother he and his twin had ever known. Nineteen years ago her husband, Keith had been accidentally shot and killed by a man. The same man that had murdered; without any remorse, Nathan and Lily's biological parents. Because they were both ghouls. And what made it worse, was that this man also happened to be Keith's brother and partner.
Dan.
Karen hadn't told them everything. She could only tell them what she knew. And that was; someone had shown up to the apartment she and Keith had been living in at that time. He'd told her what had happened to her husband that night. And also about a message he'd received from Keith; a week before he'd been shot. It mentioned about twin babies. One boy. One girl. And that he'd promised he would take care of them. The stranger went on to tell Karen that Keith had been planning to tell her everything after he and Dan had finished their 'mission.'
But something went very wrong; and Dan ended up killing his brother.
Two days later, the stranger brought the twins to Karen; and also enough money for her to leave town and start fresh somewhere else. As the two got older; so did their hunger for human flesh. Karen had been warned beforehand about this happening. That the two children were not human. And therefore could not digest human food. It made them sick. Both literally; as well as physically.
It took awhile. But eventually, Karen was given an idea by a self claimed 'ghoul expert.' Who had written a book about them. He'd made a sick joke about them eating Jane and John Doe's. So, making a tough decision; Karen knew what she needed to do in order to help her 'children.' Ever since then, Nathan and Lily have only ever eaten the flesh of a dead person. By the time the twins were in their early teens; they found they could go a whole month without having to eat again. That certainly helped with the cravings at least.
And the rest as they say...
Is history.
xXx
A/N- Thank you to all for giving this wacky story a chance. Hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas. Please R&R.
xxx
