Yes, yes! You’ve been looking forward to this all week, haven’t you? We return once again to the awful cat vampire love story drama that I tried to craft when I was in grade school. Being that I wrote this when I was about 14 in 2002, had no social life, and spent all of my time inside writing, it’s bound to be bad. This was also at a time when I had crazy curly hair that could not be tamed and gigantic glasses, which weren’t in style then (but are now for some reason…). There are still times I look back on this story and wonder how the hell I managed to write something so incredibly terrible. The realization is that I didn’t know it was terrible then. I thought it was better than the things I’d written when I was younger (and it was, somehow…). Moral of the story is that hindsight is a bitch, but it also can make you feel better about where you are now and remind you of all you’ve learned.
But I’m preaching. I’ll bring you up to speed on where we now stand in our “cat-pire” story.
Our protagonist, Leeta, new to the gang of rainwater obsessed catpires, has just encountered her ex-fiance, Jerry Challenger (the worst name for a character in the history of names for characters). Jerry, having somehow divined that she was taken away from him by the evil catpires and, therefore, has ruined his life, decides that he’s going to get revenge on her…by killing her…because that makes all kinds of sense. However, before he can do this in the edgy bad pop ballad juice bar, she’s saved by fellow catpires, street-dumb Melanie and tough-talking Seth, who scare him off with a simple “Go home, party-crasher.” Jerry escapes, vowing vengeance, and Leeta screeches that she doesn’t need anyone fighting her own cat fights as she storms off. And our story continues…
The covers on the bed were wet with tears; Leeta had been soaking them for hours. The room was lit with the blue light of the sky. The time was 4:30 A.M.. Soon enough, the sun would be rising and she welcomed it. The incident with Jerry made her hate herself even more [WHY?] and she knew if he was just going to stake and kill her anyway, why not do it herself earlier. [THIS LOGIC MAKES NO SENSE!]
She used to get so many lightly colored freckles from sitting in the sun for so long. They were beginning to fade but they could still be seen through the pale glow of her face. [Hence the “beginning to fade” line.] She heard them talking about her in the next room [the freckles?]; trying to coaxs her out but there was no point. What could she possibly offer to these people?
“What’s going on now?” came Sylvia’s voice accompanied by a door slam.
“Leeta’s locked herself in her room, still in human form. She could die in a half an hour.” Milo’s voice said urgently.
“That’s why I think I should go in, how else are we going to know unless we try.” Reed said, trying to stay cool under pressure. [The door’s locked, you idiot! How are you going to go in?]
“You know nothing about her!” Melanie shouted.
“Do I need to!?” He yelled back. [Should have subtitled the novel “Full on Yell-Fest”.]
“Listen, what she really needs is someone who can farmilliarize with her past! There for, I should go!”
“Just because you know what’s troubling her, doesn’t mean that you can set it right!” Reed cried. [At least it’s a start…]
“Sylvia?” Melanie questioned, turning to her to make the right decision.
“I would have to agree with Reed. He’s right. We won’t know unless we try. We’re running out of time,” Sylvia said slowly. [So, they are all stupid.] “Reed?” Leeta could hear light footsteps across the wooden boards as they stopped close to the door. The knock came shortly afterward.
“Leeta?” the english accent quietly asked through the door. “Leeta, its Reed. Can you just let me in; I want to talk to you.” She stayed silent. It would be good to get the wieght of her troubles off her back but she’d rather have smoked into dust then discuss it with someone who wasn’t there last night. [SEE?]
“Please. I promise I won’t touch the shade on the windows. I won’t do anything…you don’t want me to do.” [That got steamy real quick… PUN INTENDED.] If he wasn’t going to save her then she could at least think of him as a worthy person to talk to last. [One last minion to order around!] She sighed and rose from her place on the bed. She paused before she unlocked the door. She went back to the bed and sat down. Reed opened the door silently as he stepped in without a sound, turned around, closed it and locked it; and sat on the window seat just below the blue sky. [I had absolutely no idea how to use semi-colons…]
“That’s dangerous to sit there.” she whispered, gesturing to the window. He smiled but kept it an understanding smile. [What?]
“You were.” [How do you know? Do you have x-ray vision?]
She couldn’t stand not survaying him over, the way he looked at her made her want to see his looks. [Oh…Okay.] The only thing she had ever really seen before were his eyes in the dim light last night. [You mean she couldn’t see the rest of him in the light of the raging kitchen fire last night?] Tossled burnt sienna colored hair, an oval shaped face with the sky blue eyes that she loved, high cheek bones with the pale white radiance colored face, a long sleeved black shirt, blue jeans with white stitches and a pair of brown hiking boots that came up to his ankles [AS BOOTS TYPICALLY DO]. Around his neck he wore a silver chain with a diamond-shaped pendent in front. [Are we sure he’s actually into girls? Just an observation considering the diamond pendant necklace…]
“If you’re not going to save me, what are you going to do?” she questioned, the confusing note burned in her eyes. [Someone better put that out.]
“I’m going to let you save yourself.” he sighed and stared into her eyes, seemingly lifting the confussion from them. [Ugh.]
“Your going to die if you stay too long.” she assured him staring back at the floor.
“Then I’ll die. The difference is only marginal [?] to me.” he said, crossing his arms, seemingly making himself comfortable.
“Difference between what?”
“Living and dying.” he confessed. “A big shiver ran up his back and made his cheeks almost blush. “You alright?” She asked, seeing his eyes reflect the light. It was almost as if they were immitated [ING] his cat forms. They mirrored the light, like there was no eyes; just a beam of light coming from them. [I was only joking before! He really is Cyclops!]
“Reaction to the sun. Its rising,” he said, trying to shake the feeling. She stared to the window which was blinding, the cresent of the moon fading, combined with the peak of the orange sun. “You start to feel light-headed, the nausea begins to overcome you. Soon you find it hard to breathe, the gravity pulls you to the ground. Then you fade. [Sounds like being on Mars without a spacesuit to me. Or that moment when you’ve had too much Chinese food.] Once your dead, your body turns to glitter and it drifts in the air unnoticeable to the un-trained eye.” he summerized his eyes returning to normal. [So…glitter.]
Then he fell back against the wall; he was becoming light-headed as he clutched his stomache from immidiate pain.
She could feel her eyes displacing the light and she knew it would over-come her too and they would both be dead. A wave of naucea swept to her as she groaned in pain.
He didn’t deserve this punishment and niether had she really. It wasn’t her fault Jerry blamed her for this; Jerry couldn’t blame himself for anything if he had to. [“What’s the deal with catpires?”] The idea that she had to die because she didn’t do something was obserd.
Reed fell to the floor in shock, the sun casting over his angony striken face. She felt the air get thicker as it was choking her. She found her balance and staggered toward the window. The sun splashed across her face, blinding her. Searching for the cords with her hands, she pulled them to the left, unclicking the lock and let them shoot up as the blinds hid the sun and finally stopped at the window ledge. [DRAMATIC BLIND CLOSING!]
The air was already becoming thinner as her lungs filled with it. Leeta crouched on the floor and rolled Reid on his back.
‘Good, he’s not glitter.’ she thought, letting her hand brush his hair away from his face. It moved back by itself, practically sticking up on the top of his head.
“Reed?” she asked, staring at the steady rise and fall of his chest. [Isn’t he supposed to be an undead catpire? Why is he breathing anyway?] His eyes opened a crack and he smiled a tiny bit. [But an UNDERSTANDING smile, right?]
“Glad you decided to save yourself.”
“I saved us both,” she stated, helping him to his feet. “Um…thanks for making me look the other way.” […that’s not what that means.]
“The feelings…marginal.” he replied. [IT DOESN’T MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS, PAST SELF! I MEAN IT! *anybody want a peanut?*] He moved his hair back into place with one hand as he walked to the door and left. Leeta slumped on the bed and squeezed her hands into fists.
“Damnit!” she whispered, slamming them on her legs. [Ow.]
And this is the conclusion of the story. I wish I was joking. I stopped here. I think it finally occurred to me how exceedingly dumb the plot was and so I never finished it. We can assume that the following things were meant to happen though: Reed and Leeta, our double e’d lovecats ended up falling head over tails for each other, Jerry probably attempted to get his revenge via a clumsy assassin named Kramer and failed miserably in this, the catpires reveled in drinking WAY too much rainwater, battled several more kitchen fires, reduced stress via television watching, tickling the ivories, and racing around the block on motorcycles, and no doubt visited their strange little 90’s pop juice discotheque again where more drama ensued. I, for one, am glad that it stopped where it did.
Stay tuned for more bad old writing, and other fun things to come on Horror-FAIL Friday. And if you enjoyed this series, leave a like and a comment. Thanks!
~KSilva
The Kat At Night 