Not This Time

[valerie_vause]

There was an eerie feel to the small town of Searchlight. As if it were shrouded in mysteries all of its own. In passing she had noticed two diners, a bowling alley, various shops and a few motels. During the day it had been quite busy, everyone appeared friendly enough, though she hadn’t stopped to chat. Yet the feeling remained; something was a little off with the place. It begged to be explored, but for now Valerie seemed content to venture into the outskirts. Not far at night, but enough for her to be alone following a road through the dust and sand. It kicked up with each step she took, swirled around her sneakers and settled back to the earth. Even with the sun gone heat remained in the air, a warm blanket free of the breeze. Above her the sky danced with stars, thousands of little silver dots suspended in darkness like a canvas speckled with paint. The view was truly beautiful.

She paused to watch a lizard scurry behind a cluster of small rocks and imagined that’s where it lived. Of course it didn’t, but the notion made her smile as she shifted the strap of her shoulder bag and kept walking. It was amazing the things people just threw away. Discarded out of a moving car or left behind at the side of the road after a quick stop. Most of the time it was trash. Candy wrappers and gum papers but sometimes she found things that could be used in her art, in some way or another. That was the perk of sculpting, any materials could be used. Metal, wood, clay, fabric, plastic, plaster, sand, dirt, rope... And now that she was attending UNLV she’d get to learn all kinds of new things to try out.

Earlier she had stepped over a baseball cap, the material faded and the edges frayed. It had been worn a lot before it had been tossed aside, possibly even treasured. Now forgotten and left for the desert to claim. Not long after that she had stumbled upon a broken rubik’s cube. The edges stuck out awkwardly as if forced too hard, jammed, no doubt from frustration. Valerie had liked the look of it and the thing quickly found home in her bag to accompany her other stuff.

With her eyes cast down to the side of the road Valerie continued on. Kicking stones out of her path every now and then. Until one bounced and rolled to a stop next to a notepad no bigger than her hand. There was no sign of a pen as she neared it yet there was something scrawled across the top page. Without thinking she bent down to wipe off the layer of dust that had gathered and frowned at the two words crudely written.

She flipped a page, then another, just to flick through the rest quickly only to find them all blank. “Huh.” She muttered as she stood up. It could mean anything, yet the words echoed in her mind like a bad taste that lingered on the tongue. Maybe if she spat them out they’d leave her alone.

“I’m next.”

The words were barely out of her mouth when she heard it. A snarl. Faint even to her own ears yet unmistakable, like the gruff whisper that followed, “Yes, you are.”

Valerie turned instinctively, fully expecting to see a pair of bright yellow eyes gazing back at her, but what she saw made her blink instead. Confusion marred her features as she folded her arms and shook her head. “What are you doing?” She queried.

“Intimidating you to instil fear.” He replied with a toothy grin. Even in the darkness fangs glinted for her to see.

“Uh...” Valerie uncrossed her arms to gesture around them. “You’re in the desert at night wearing sunglasses.”

He puffed up and squared his shoulders with a derisive sniff. “They look good on me.”

“Maybe when you still had eyebrows but not with all the...” She motioned to her own forehead as if that would help. “Face lumps.”

( Read more... )

Checking Things Out

[brian_campo]

Brian stared at the occult shop, hands in his pockets. It was his reason for driving down to Searchlight. In Las Vegas, these kinds of shops felt like tourist traps, and he worried about running into someone he knew, like a kid who recognized him from a show. His band, the Fraying Nerves, wasn’t famous, not even locally, so it was a conceited stretch to imagine that. Still. His luck, it would happen.

He wasn’t going in. He just wanted to look, to picture himself walking in, to get used to the idea.

Through the filter of sunglasses, he looked around himself. The town was a pit stop on the highway. Dusty, quiet, bright as fucking Tatooine. None of the buildings were tall enough to block the sun. Everything looked bleached.

“Hey, Mr. Hollywood, mind stepping aside so I can buy that paper?”

“Huh?”

A man held up a quarter and gestured at the newspaper stand Brian leaned on.

“Oh, sorry.” Brian straightened up. Embarrassed, he crossed the street and kept walking until he came to a diner. He ducked inside without checking the name and slid into an empty chair. A whoosh of air conditioning chilled the sweat on his face and his arm pits. He tried to discreetly inspect them. Two wet circles darkened his Smiths t-shirt. Great.

He mopped his face on his shoulder and took a menu.

[Thread: Open to Valerie]

The Quiet

[rhiannon_lee]

“Ah, shit…”

Rhiannon inspected a hairline crack in her wooden stake. No way was this thing making it through a chest cavity, unless the vamp was excessively fleshy. Well, that’s what happens when you use it as a doorstop, she chided. Her motel, a rustic place called the El Rey, needed a few upgrades, chief among them doors with working locks. Upon discovering hers was on the fritz, Rhiannon had shoved her stake in the threshold as a stop-gap, put on headphones to block the sounds of rampant sex next door, and crashed. She never heard the 10 a.m. housekeeper knock, just her efforts to shove the door open.

“Here’s hoping this place is as dead as it looks,” she muttered, flipping the stake in her palm. The cemetery was four acres of gravel, cacti, iron crosses, and graves outlined with rocks. No proper crypts, but a few above-ground vaults that could protect the undead in a pinch. She had gone there for lack of a better idea. Vegas would be fertile hunting ground. This town? All Rhiannon knew was that it was cheap and, on some level, its simplicity appealed to her. The sky full of stars appealed to her. The lack of traffic appealed to her. The fact that no one would think to look for her in Searchlight definitely appealed to her.

She sat cross-legged on a vault and listened to the sand shifting in the wind.

[Thread: Open to Tristan]