Melanie:
On the way into Bon Temp, an eery feeling came over us. Something wasn’t right. There was litter everywhere. The welcome sign had graffiti all over it. This wasn’t how we’d left it. The three of us looked out the window to see a guy smashing his head on a wooden post then woman chasing a man yelling obscenities. The vehicle came to a screeching halt as the windshield was smashed in by two bodies.
“They just ran in front of me.” The panicked driver told us before we all hopped out the car.
A young couple laughed as they got up, grabbing each other and making out while their cuts oozed blood. Sookie and I stood, stunned by their erratic behavior while Jason stepped in front of us.”
“Hey!” I called out. “Ya’ll okay?”
The couple turned around and their eyes were black. Not just the pupil, no the entire eye. I gasped as we started backing away.
“Hey, what the hell’s wrong with your eyes?” Jason asked, utterly creeped out.
“Let’s go.” One of them said to the other.
“Wait, where you going?” He asked again.
“We gotta find Sam!” The woman removed her suede vest, leaving only a bathing suit top on.
The three of us looked at each other. They were looking for Sam? Merlotte? What the fuck happened here?
The car brought us to Bill’s house and the driver unloaded his coffin in the foyer while Jason called the sheriff’s office to let them know about the couple they had hit. Sookie told him to ask what was going on around town but they got the machine. It was all so bizzare.
I walked over to the window, looking out at the street as people continued to act crazy, destroying everything in their path. Bill stepped out of his coffin and Sookie ran over to him.
“Bill, there’s something serious wrong on Bon Temps. I can feel it.”
“Well, if it ain’t the vamper and his vamper lover.” Maxine Fortenberry came out from one of the doorways on the second floor. She leaned against the railing, looking down at us with those same black eyes.
“Oh-ho-ho, there’s those fucking eyes again.” Jason looked up at her as he moved closer to me.
Maxine cackled before we heard Hoyt’s voice calling her back.
“Oh thank god you’re home!” Jessica cried out as she came from the room. “She’s gone like totally batshit.”
“What the devil…?” Bill asked watching Maxine try to run down the stairs before Hoyt stopped her.
“I had nothing to do with it! I swear!” Jess defended throwing her arms out.
“At first I thought maybe it was just a bad reaction to to her new diet pills.” Hoyt came down the stairs, blocking his mother’s way. “But then we saw that practically the whole town got these eyes.”
“How long has she been like this?” Bill asked.
“Since last night.” Jessica answered coming down after then.
“And I will be for as long as it takes for him to get his offering.” Maxine said in her trance.
Jason and I looked at eachother confused.
“That sounds fucking fucked-up.” Jason shook his head, looking at Bill.
“She’s been going on about Sam Merlotte and how they’re going to offer him to God.” Hoyt clarified.
“Why don’t you offer yourself up to me, Jason Stackhouse.” Maxine approached him, putting a hand around his neck. “You dirty little monkey!”
She pulled him in for a kiss but I pulled her away, “Woah woah woah, Mrs. Fortenberry, you don’t wanna do that -.”
She tried to push past me but Bill and Hoyt pulled her away and set her up with the Wii. It was the most focused she’d been since we got home and it finally gave us a chance to see what was going on. Apparently, God was coming and everyone was waiting at Merlotte’s to catch Sam so they could take him to this woman, Maryann’s house which was our gran’s house. All of it had something to do with the creature that scratched Sookie. Jason being the hero that he was, decided to go to Merlotte and find out why.
Bill, Sookie, and I pulled to a stop at Gran’s. Right in the front yard was a giant sculpture of twigs and rotten meats causing flies to swarm around it. We could see the inside from the missing front door. Candles were lit and everything looked dirty with more twigs all over the place. We followed Sookie’s lead inside only to be met with screeching animal sounds and creepy music. This didn’t look anything like how we’d left it.
I walked to our stairs to find all of our picture frames shattered along the steps. A picture of Gran, Sookie, and Tara almost completely destroyed.
“Tara?” Sookie called. “Tara!”
My phone ringing in my pocket made us all jump before I reached and answered it. “Lafayette, where is Tara?”
“She’s with me. I need to know when ya’ll are gonna be back in town.”
“I’m here, in what used to be my living room.”
“Mel, you gon’ have to get up out that house now!”
“Is Tara okay?”
“I ain’t half as worried about her as I am about you up in that fucking house. Get out! Run.”
“Tara’s with him” I hung up the phone. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
Sookie grabbed Bill’s arm and ran for the front door before being stopped by an unfamiliar woman.
“What are you doing in my house?” She asked, a creepy glare giving us the shivers.
“This is not your house.” Sookie stood up to her.
The woman took a step forward causing Sookie to back away. “It is now.”
“I strongly suggest you remove yourself immediately.” Bill tried to assert himself.
“My, you found yourself quite the specimen. Though I daresay there’s nothing stopping him from one day leaving you cold.” She looked directly at Bill while talking to Sookie.
“You don’t scare me.” Sookie said before she was thrown against the wall, choked by the woman’s strength.
Bill and I pushed her away. I grabbed Sookie to help her up while Bill dropped his fangs to bite her. The woman seemed to enjoy it as she held him against her before he started to choke as well.
“What’d you do to him!?” I yelled as we both held him up.
She laughed wildly at her own accomplishment as Bill started throwing up blood. Sookie stood in front of us while I helped him up only to have her face cupped by the woman.
“What are you?” She asked curiously.
Sookie placed her hand on the woman’s face and she had a light push the woman away. While she gasped, we grabbed Bill and ran to the car. She could’ve easily chased us but she just continued to laugh. Asking Sookie what she was from the doorway.
I jumped in the driver’s seat while Sookie sat in the back with Bill. She’d clearly poisoned him but as a vampire he would heal. Despite speeding down the street, I looked in my rearview to see Sookie staring at her hands the same way I had.
“Was that what you did to Eric?” She asked.
I nodded my head, taking a turn at the end of the dirt road. “Yeah.”
“What are we?”
Bill groaned again and Sookie used his shirt to wipe the blood from his chin before sticking his head out the window for fresh air. Her blood made vampire blood react. No wonder Sookie had seized when Bill offered her blood after she was scratched. As curious as I was to find out what we were, I was more interested in what she was.
“Tara?” Sookie asked after seeing Tara strapped to a chair at Lafayette’s. “What’s happened to you?”
“Get me the fuck outta here, you stupid cunt.”
She wasn’t herself. Just like Maxine and everyone else, her eyes were pitch black and she went back to chanting something in a language none of us could understand. Lafayette kneeled down next to Tara.
“We’re losing her, Sook.”
Sookie placed her hands on Tara’s shoulders, closing her eyes to take a look inside her mind. “It’s all… dark.” She said, waving me over.
I grabbed her hand and did the same, seeing nothingness inside. “It’s just one big void.”
“Stop trying to rape my brain!” Tara cussed again.
“I can’t see or hear anything.” Sookie explained.
“It’s not her. It’s… she’s gone.” I added, staring down at whatever had taken over Tara’s body.
“Don’t say that, Mel. She’s in there. Just … try again.”
“I know! But what am I supposed to do?” I asked them.
“Try together.” Bill said. “You have to go further into her mind than you ever have before.
Sookie and I looked at each other before we nodded. Each placing a hand on Tara’s shoulders before closing our eyes.
We caught glimpses of people, at a party? Maryann dancing to music. Then we were blocked out again.
Sookie shook her head. “There’s something – something we can’t cross. An abyss?”
“Then let me glamour her.” Bill stepped forward.
“What?” Lettie Mae stepped forward defensively.
“Lettie Mae, sit your ass down and quit pretending you gave a shit.” I moved her out of the way for Bill.
“I don’t want to hurt her.” Sookie looked up at Bill.
“It may help. If we leave her like this who knows what harm may come to her. Or us.” He said looking around the room.
OOO
When morning came, we were all exhausted. Bill had left to visit the queen, hopefully she had the answers to what we were dealing with. Tara was still throwing a fit talking about how she had to go get Eggs, whoever that was. I couldn’t handle it anymore so Lafayette and I walked out onto his deck loaded with a shotgun each in case that devil woman showed up here. Sookie remained inside with Lettie Mea. Lord knows I couldn’t be around that bitch. She’d been nothing but trouble since we were kids and I was sick of her holy-ier than thou act as if she ever gave a fuck about Tara.
“Jason, it’s Mel. Give me a call when you get this. Let me know you’re okay.” I left my brother a voicemail as Lafayette stood guard by tree.
I put my gun on the table and took a sip of my bottle of whiskey before taking a seat. We hadn’t heard from Jason all night and I was starting to freak out. It was just like him to go off and do his own thing without a phone call but in times like this it’d be nice to know he was okay. Unlike Sookie, I couldn’t get a feel for him. I couldn’t sense where he was.
“You know, for being 24, you drink more than anyone I know.” Lafayette broke the silence.
I laughed, tracing my thumb around the neck of the bottle, wiping the condensation from it. “When your head is full of everyone else’s thoughts, you tend to drink just to soften the sound a little.”
“I hear that.” He nodded, keeping an eye out on the trees.
“Don’t you at least want to sit down?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“I got a text from Bill.” Sookie walked outside, closing the door behind her as she joined us. “From five hours ago, dammit! I’m getting a new phone as soon as Eric pays us.”
“You working for Eric?” Lafayette, lowered his gun to look at her.
“Mhm.” She nodded, trying to read the text. “Great. Bill’s not coming back until tomorrow.”
“So what do we do now? Just pray that bitch doesn’t come to collect Tara?” Lafayete threw his arms out.
“Guess we better not plan on him saving us.” I took another sip.
“Will you stop with the drinking!” Sookie pulled the bottle away from me. “We need you clear headed in case anything happens.”
“What was it like inside Tara’s head?” He asked, taking a seat next to us.
“Like there was no limit, like anything could happen and it probably will. And you can feel your insides expanding, but there’s also this emptying out of everything right at the very center of your being and you don’t want that to ever stop.” Sookie said, staring blankly at the floorboards.
“Damn that sounds nice.” He nodded.
“How’s your leg?” I asked him, noticing him walking a hell of a lot better than he had been.
“Better than ever.” He said stretching it out.
“How’d that happen?” Sookie asked.
“Eric made me drink his motherfuckin’ blood is how it happened.”
I looked over at him, nodding as I remembered how replenished my body felt when my ribs broke. It was like I was a new person. “Me too.”
“I can’t stand him.” Sookie shook her head. “Somebody otta slap him.”
“Shut the fuck up, Sookie. You milk Bill like your personal watering hole.” I rolled my eyes.
“Do you ever have any dreams about him?” Lafayette asked, turning to me.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “It’s like he’s always in my head.”
“And sex dreams?” He asked. “All kind of nasty and … fantastic. Which freaks me the fuck out because I hates that motherfucker, more than you ever know.”
I leaned my head back to look at the clouds as I remembered our last night in Dallas. The dreams were immaculate but the real thing was even better. Every thrust, every touch of his lips, his hands claiming my body. Even the bite had me riding a wave of ecstasy. As much as I hated what he had done to Lafayette, that man sure knew how to create an internal war between your mind and your heart.
Lettie Mea ran out the front door crying and we all stood up.
“Oh hell, what now?” Lafayette picked up his gun. “What?”
“I can’t stay there with her, saying those things that break my heart. I will keep guard while one of you goes to sit with her.”
The three of us looked amongst ourselves, Lafayette and I finding her offer suspicious but he gave her the gun anyway. The second she got in in her hands she pointed it straight at him. I reached for mine but she shot off a bullet into the air.
“Uh uh, Melanie Stackhouse, you back away now.”
I put my hands up, stepping away from the gun as Sookie moved closer to me.
“Tara baby, I got the gun!” She yelled from inside the house.
“Oh you are not really doing this!” Sook tried to reason.
“Go unlock the handcuffs.” She commanded. When none of us moved, she shot one off again.”GO!”
Lafayette fell to his knees as his PTSD came back. I rushed to his side wrapping my arms around him to calm him down. Fucking Eric. Sookie nodded her head, when reason didn’t work, she walked inside and unlocked Tara. She cussed her out after handing her the keys to the car but we all knew Sook would be the first one to put everyone in danger just for Bill. The hypocrisy was real.
We watched Tara drive off and Lettie Mae still held the gun to us. With her still staring at Sookie, I grabbed a wooden sculpture from behind us and threw it at her head, knocking her over. Sookie grabbed the gun and I grabbed Lafayette, dragging him to the car. Lettie Mae yelled behind us how it wasn’t her fault but we weren’t trying to hear any of it.
“Our Gran lived and died in that house. Now it’s like people who are the opposite of everything she was, are defiling her.” I watched as people ran naked around the weird tree in front of the house.
“I almost got raped in Dallas.” Sookie’s voice cracked. “But this is so much worse.”
“Don’t take it personal, guys. They ain’t themselves. They’re not doing it on purpose.” Lafayette held the gun securely as he watched.
“The first time I met Maryann, I knew there was something seriously off about her. She was thinking creepy foreign stuff, and I could tell it wasn’t good.”
“I mean, you couldn’t have stopped her Sook.” He said softly.
“How come there’s so much wrong in the world?” She asked. “How come so many people are willing to do bad things and hurt other people?”
“Stop it.” I crossed my arms. “Now’s not the time for this shit. We get in, we get Tara, we shot that bitch in the face and end all of this. Understood?”
Eric:
“Why should I help you, shifter?” I leaned back against the leather couches, Pam standing behind me as Sam Merlotte and two children sat in my bar.
“Because I need your help. We need it. And hopefully someday, I might be able to give you something you need.”
“Can you give me Melanie Stackhouse?”
I could feel Pam rolling her eyes behind me but it was a fair question. I’d been craving her since our departure in Dallas. Her blood was more addicting than anything I’d ever tried in my thousand years, and the sex was good enough to match. But I knew that once we were back here, we were back to being enemies though I knew I wasn’t going to stop trying.
“No.” The shifter shook his head.
“Well that’s a shame. That would be a tribute I would not soon forget.”
“I’m not here to pay you tribute, Eric.” He raised his voice.
“No, you’re here to request my help based on the hypothetical future in which you return the favor.” Sam sighed, looking at the two kids with him before I sat up again. “But you are known to not be friendly toward those like me. Why should I trust you?”
“Because until somebody starts trusting somebody, we’re all single targets just ripe for the picking.”
I knew I was going to help anyway. I’d been waking up to Melanie’s fears all throughout the day but I was unable to do anything. I’d visited her last night, despite her not knowing. I watched as she sat on the deck of her friend’s porch. Shotgun loaded and ready for anyone who dared join her. As small as she was, her courage was larger than any I’d known.
“I have no knowledge of this maenad creature, although i suspect it’s the bullheaded beast that passed through recently. Right, Pam?”
“That thing owes me a pair of shoes.”
Sam looked between us.”So will you help us or not?”
“ I do know someone who might be able to offer something useful. Might be able to.” I made sure he understood the big maybe.
“Can we see your fangs?” The little boy asked.
I dropped them and the little girl gasped, leaning backwards.
“Don’t you like vampire’s little girl?”
“Our almost stepdaddy hated vampires.” She said, leaning closer with her brother to check them out. “But we don’t.”
“He went on vacation with Jesus.” The boy added.
“You make me so happy I never had any of you.” Pam chimed in, crossing her arms.
“Oh come on Pam. They’re funny. They’re like humans, but miniature.” I leaned closer to look at them. “Teacup humans.”
“So can you call this other person who might be able to -” The shifter brought our attention back.
“Better yet, I’ll go see her, but I must leave right away.”