#‘he was snacking on a sack of goobers’

[sleestakkkk]

i cannot stop calling people goobers like HELLO?? what does that even mean????

[luciferkirk]

"he was snacking on a sack of goobers"

-google

[bloodandpaintchips]

Eat, Pray, Love

Tagging→ Andrea Sheldon, Audra Sheldon, a dead guy named Lou Time Frame→ Late September, 2020 Location→ Brooklyn & Upstate NY General Notes→ Andy’s a mess, and finally meets her proposed dead mother, Audra. It goes well.   

Glamorous.

When Andrea got another bite on her Facebook post about her mom and the photos she posted, she didn’t open it for a while. When she finally did, just like the note, she just kept repeating certain phrases in her head. Like glamorous.

It still sat in her DMs days later:

Hey, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the lady you’re looking for. I work in Chelsea and I’ve served her and some guy a few times. Almost didn’t recognize her or say anything because the woman I see is way more glamorous. Not as grungy and artsy, just reallly nice jewelry and big tips.

Anyway, I don’t know much about her or where she’s from but I know she either lives here in the city or she comes in a lot. 

Hope this helps.

Andy knew this was supposed to be exciting, but for the first time in what had to be years, she was nervous. Did this person make a mistake or did she actually get a lead on Audra? Taking the next step felt important.

Maybe her head was also in a spin because she was so hungry. She looked up from the twin motel bed she sat perched on to look at the mirror across the room over the dresser. Just an empty spot on the bed in front of a laptop, but she didn’t need a reflection to know she no longer looked human. The hungrier she got, the more tired, the more she stayed in her true form, which she had yet to accept. Tearing her gaze away from the reflection, she looked over at the twenty-something year old guy laying face down on the bed, glassy eyes gazing at her and mouth quivering from her compulsion to stay quiet.

He looked bad. Skin overly pale, her bites covering him, some of them getting infected. It was like fasting and coming home to a TV dinner that had been left out for a week.

She groaned, shutting the laptop and reaching for a rubber band on the nightstand to put her hair up.

In moments she was out of the motel, walking to her van with No Name Dude slung over her shoulder. 

Tossing him into the back and unceremoniously shutting the doors, she got into the driver's seat, started the engine and took off to the local hospital. So far she’s been deemed in this West Virginia town as “animal attacks” but she knew she had about one more time before she had to hit the road again.

Parking far away from the emergency entrance, she put the car in park and looked back at the near dead college boy on her blankets. 

After stopping the car she crawled back there, taking a few deep breaths to hype herself up for one last feed on this guy so she could play it off long enough to find the next one. But she knew it was gonna taste gross.

Scanning his arm for an okay spot, she lifted his elbow to her lips and sank her exposed fangs a few inches above it, drinking and shutting her eyes through a few gulps. With a deep breath, she released him and wiped her mouth off with one of the blankets. Despite the stale taste, after a moment she felt slightly normal again. She could feel herself returning to normal, skin soft and eyes clear, but she had a small window of time before her hunger would begin to nag again.

She pulled the guy out of her van, throwing him back over her shoulder and taking off to the entrance to drop his body on the curb. Feeling his pulse, her eyebrows raised to find that it was pretty steady.

“Good luck,” she mumbled. After that she was gone, having sped back to the van, started it up and headed for the road.

West Virginia Tech wasn’t exactly a notorious party school, but she ate well while she was here. And if she was going to have the energy to get closer to finding her mother, she needed to be filled up one more time.

-

“Oh hi, I’m so sorry I’m just standing out here like a goober, I guess I’m debating cause I’m nervous,” Andrea said, greeting three girls walking up onto the porch of a house party.

“Oh my god! Are you new on campus?” One of the girls pressed her hand to her chest like Andrea was the most precious thing she’d ever seen.

“Do you know anyone inside? If not you can come in with us!” The tallest girl introduced herself as Kelly, the first one to speak as Chelsea and the third, who was already buzzed and shooting Andy a warm smile, as Morgan. 

“No, I just saw the public invite and wanted to put myself out there but I should have known coming alone would send me into a whirlwind of regret,” Andy replied, laughing and shaking her head.

“Come on, you’ll walk in with us and it won’t be awkward at all,” Chelsea said, earning nods from her friends.

When they entered the party, bass throbbing against wood floors and bodies everywhere, Andrea thought of a time when these kinds of events (outside of working) used to send her into an anxiety hole. She thought about her past fears a lot. Now, all she felt in the sweaty room to the soundtrack of Travis Scott was determination. 

She played up her role of awkward new girl, letting the threesome introduce her around until she found the right one. Luckily, he ended up presenting himself.

“Kelly, who’s your friend?” He asked, leaning in to be heard over the music.

“This is Rachel, our new friend!” She yelled back along with confirmations from the girls.

Andy maintained her role but almost wanted to giggle to herself at the way this boy looked at her, like he was hungry and she was a delicious snack; irony always got to her.

“Yeah, my name’s Rachel,” she repeated, reaching out to shake his hand. 

“Lou. You new to the school or just the crew?” His hand lingered on hers for a moment and the girls, watching and grinning and giggling amongst themselves, took that as a cue to let them get to know each other.

“New to the school and the crew I guess,” she answered, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving a half smile to really play up her naïveté. “I’m enjoying myself though.”

“Do you get high?”

“Yeah actually, are they smoking in here?”

“No but I’ve got some up in my room.”

She met his curious eyes with a smile, holding her hand out, telling him to lead the way. On her way up the stairs, you could hear whoops and other inappropriate commentary despite the loud ass music. She knew it was coming; the college parties all blend together after a while.

Lou sat on his bed, rolling a blunt on what looked to be a folder from one of his classes. He was asking her a lot of bullshit questions about her interests and who she was as a person so the obvious ploy to get her in the sack seemed more genuine.

“So I lied,” she said, once he’d finished rolling and was passing the second hit to her. She hit it once and pressed the burning tip onto the desk to put it out. “I don’t really smoke.”

Lou’s eyes lit up and she could tell he was holding back a pleased grin. “Oh, you just wanted to spend some time alone with me?” They were sitting on his small bed and he inched closer, putting an arm around her shoulder.

She made eye contact with him again, giving a shy smile before pressing the middle of his chest back so he was essentially tossed onto the pillow. His eyes were wide from his now laying position but they still glistened with excitement as she crawled on top of him.

“You got me,” she said, taking off her glasses and putting them on the stand. His heart was beating fast and she could hear it so loudly.

“I uh, don’t have any protection, I hope that’s cool.” 

She tried not to roll her eyes, instead leaning down to press a small kiss to his neck before flicking her tongue at the lobe of his ear. “That’s cool,” she said simply before beginning a trail of kissing and sucking down his neck, collarbone and eventually removing his shirt to continue down his torso.

He bucked his hips a little, rushing her toward the blowjob he was so sure was coming.

“Be patient,” she said, running a finger down to his happy trail.

“I’m sorry you’re just...so—”

She didn’t want to waste any more time, sinking her fangs into his hip. She would later think it funny that she ended up being the impatient one. 

Covering his mouth when he started to scream, she shushed him repeatedly, still straddling his waist.

“You’re going to be silent. And you’re going to come with me.”

——

Back at the motel, Andy laid on one of the twin beds, her hand on her stomach and a smile on her face. She felt solid again. Lou was slumped up in a sitting position on the other bed, watching tv with dazed eyes and remaining under her command not to speak.

Sitting up, she grabbed her laptop and set it in front of her, ready to finally answer that message and possibly hit the road again soon.

“Thanks for this, by the way.” The comment was directed at Lou where he sat, as she opened the internet and leaned over to grab a lighter off the table, sparking the blunt he’d rolled for them (her, now) hours earlier.

______________________________________________________________

So Lou was dead.

He was also still in the back of her van, but once she reached New York, one hunch led to another, to an acquaintance to...actually being close to her mom. She’d been led to one more person, someone who supposedly could give her an address. So, she didn’t really have time to find a hospital and dump his half dead body there. She didn’t really have time for anything but feeding and fixating.

She was also not doing too hot again. Thumping her head against the driver’s seat of the van, she sighed heavily before aggressively slapping herself in the face.

“Come on Andrea,” she mumbled through gritted teeth. She knew she had to get better at feeding -- more efficient or something because she got to this point much too often. A voice in her head told her it was her own fault, feeding on singular targets until they get rotten, leaving them alive because of some pathetic desire she had in her heart to be good. Ironically, she didn’t care as much about that as a human. Maybe because she had a soul then and didn’t spend all the time lamenting about her lack of one.

She was the lamest fucking immortal on the planet, that much she knew had to be true.

Her eyes weren’t hazel anymore, her veins protruding to show she hadn’t properly fed in days. Maybe a week. Time was blurring together even more the closer she got to Audra. But she had to get out of the van and go across the street to the club. Her executive functioning also seemed to grow the closer she got. Scared but determined to find her mother; it was an annoying line to toe.

The nightclub was called BACCHUS and it was somewhere in Brooklyn. It would be the first creature friendly drinking hole she’d encounter since TARTARUS. Looking at the neon sign would have made her a little nostalgic if she wasn’t so focused on the turning of her stomach, skin and head. Her hunger made her feel like she had the flu, and that was only in early stages. If this place was for humans, they might have called her a meth-head and dismissed her at the door.

“Oh, honey.” The bodyguard at the entrance addressed her with concerned yellow eyes when she was at the front of the line. “Come on in.”

She simply gave him a grateful smile before going in, scanning the big city club for a bartender with fire red hair, as he’d been described to her by multiple humans and vampires who had encountered Audra. Supposedly he did more than encounter her before she “settled down” wherever she was. Fighting off a couple twitches, she continued to study the bar until she found him.

 “Don’t even, sweetheart,” he said, holding a hand up when she found a stool in front of him. She was confused until he set a tumbler of thick red liquid on the bar in front of her. Everyone could tell she was out of it. She downed it, no questions asked.

As soon as she’d set it down, he was refilling it again from a glass jar with snake engravings on it.

“That’s cool,” she said, pointing at the jar before gladly taking her glass and finishing it off again.

“I’ve had it forever. But let’s talk about who you are and why you don’t like feeding.” His eyes flashed a pretty violet and she found herself studying the vampire, thinking of her mother and the vast difference between this bartender and Frank Sheldon.

“Um, I’m Andrea. I got turned against my will when I was 24 and I guess I’m still struggling.” He was studying her too.

“So you need to loosen up,” he replied, ignoring the other bar patrons waving at him for service, to the irritation of his coworkers. “I have just the thing.”

He reached under the bar and pulled out a similar jar, only this one was matte black, covered in silver snakes.

“Why the new jar?” She asked, eyeing the new stream of blood being served into her glass. He shrugged.

“My good stuff. Consider it to be top shelf,” he said with a pleased grin. She was already feeling better, knowing the skin on her face was smooth again and her eyes back to their unassuming shade. As a result she relaxed the more she spoke to him, but she was getting away from the point. Downing the new glass and not tasting anything strange, she slid it back to him with a gracious nod.

“So, I’m not just here looking for free snacks and conversation with a new person,” she began. He liked that, leaning forward on the bar and cocking his head slightly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I...someone I met recently said you may be able to point me in the direction of Audra Sheldon.”

That gave him pause and he straightened his back, expression flopping between surprise and confusion.

“Sheldon?”

“Uh, she may have gone by Audra Miller when you knew her.” The confusion left his face and he folded his arms, eyeing her curiously.

“Wow. You’re the daughter.”

“Did she talk about me?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her expression dropped a bit when he shook his head.

“No. She was pretty withholding about her past. Especially with me. When I’m with someone I can briefly see their memories. You look like the little girl I saw, now that I get a real look at you.”

Andrea wondered if Audra never spoke of them to protect them. It would make sense. It just seems odd to brush a little girl’s hair every day and sing to her and read her comics only to never bring her up again.

“What would I see if I saw your memories?” he asked, bringing her out of the thought trail. She trailed the rim of her glass and laughed a little, feeling a strange buzz in her head that felt unfamiliar. Probably the top shelf blood or whatever.

“Not much,” she shrugged. “You’d see a lot of movie nights with a human dad, my glorious years as a busboy and a few romps, some that stay with me, some I really wish I could forget. Typical sad immortal girl shit I guess.” The way he gazed at her made her add on another point. “I dont necessarily believe in the whole ‘when you sleep with someone you’re sleeping with everyone they’ve slept with’ bit, but I would definitely pass on having a sex partner in common with my mother.”

He laughed loudly, earning an eye roll from the other bartender who pushed behind him to serve an impatient demon. “Maybe you have a little gift for mind reading.”

“I don’t think so. I could just be good at reading people. Or it could be you blatantly looking...everywhere…” she said, trailing off a bit as his gaze drifted back up from her arms, neck and chest.

“I’m sorry, I tend to be a little greedy sometimes,” he said, trying his best at a well-meaning smile.

“I just need the address.” She knew he had it, he knew she wanted it, and she was grateful for the blood but tired of being leered at.

“Why do you wanna find your mom anyway? She certainly didn’t go looking for you.” Despite his discouraging words, he was ripping off a piece of paper from a pad by the register behind him. He scribbled a few words onto it with a sharpie and slid it to her.

“Well, I guess if that’s the case I have a twenty plus year curiosity to quell. Thanks,” she said, sliding off the stool.

“Good luck,” he paused and put his hand on hers that held the paper, smirking. “And have a good trip okay?”

She stood there, squinting at him after the weird sendoff and gently pulled her hand away. He said “trip” with a wink and she didn’t have time to decipher it. However the buzzing in her head had grown quite a bit and the further away she got from the bar, the more she thought his “top shelf” blood might have had a strange kick to it.

___________

Lou was well past the rigor mortis stage, but Andrea couldn’t be bothered with that. She only just realized she’d been dosed with a psychedelic and now that she had an address, stopping now seemed silly. He would just have to stay there for the time being. She had no idea how long the drugs would last or what they would do to her so she just needed to get where she was going.

The first wave was alright, maybe she even liked it. The lights of the city danced and when she got to the interstate along rows of trees, they danced for her too. Their arms reached over the road ahead of her, twisting and furling. As long as she did what the GPS said, she felt she would be fine. And she really believed that, until she started to peak and the hallucinations took form.

The van skidded to a stop off the side of the road when she felt someone there with her. She swore she felt someone sitting in the passenger seat but whenever she looked, they were gone. She had to stop. Get herself together.

When no one materialized, she cursed at herself and put the car back in drive, bouncing back onto the paved road.

“Oh, we could have been so happy Andrea. I swear you just didn’t see it.”

She heard those words, clear as day. But she wouldn’t stop again, could only grip the wheel until she could feel it indenting under her skin. She knew it was August’s voice, the sound of it sending a shiver up her scar. It was unmistakable.

“He’s not here Andy. That’s impossible. He’s not here.” She finally stole a glance over to the passenger seat and gasped, snapping her eyes back to the road and shaking her head. 

August was there, pale and dapper in one of those suits, holding his decapitated head in his arms, the blood pooling in his lap and dripping from the open wound that was his neck. The head was doing the talking while his arms kept him securely in his lap.

“You have so much potential, Andrea and you’re just wasting it!” 

“No. No no no no no…” she muttered to herself, taking deep empty breaths and trying her best to keep her eyes on the road. She knew the veins in her face were pulsing, unsure if she was turning against her will because of the drugs or if she was hungry again. She was so unsure and fucking August was still talking.

“You thought a bartender or a bouncer or a pizza clerk could give you what you wanted but I offered you everything you could need on a silver platter. Every single thing you wanted--”

“EXCEPT FOR YOU. I NEVER. WANTED YOU. YOU TOOK ME,” her bellowed words filled the van as it screeched to another stop and she looked at the headless man, red veiny eyes swelling.

After a glance back at the road, he was gone. But she swore she could still see the blood puddle stain from where he sat. Starting back onto the road, she was now very aware that she hated this. She was so on edge she knew her driving wheel would now be the shape of her clenched fingers when she pulled them away.

Her phone said she had another two hours before reaching her destination. With no one else on the road in the middle of the night, she sped.

The radio was blasting now because she needed a distraction. Needed something other than the silence and whoever else would try to invade it. A couple swerves on the road where attributed to her glancing in the rearview mirror and seeing her father, looking back at her as himself only with her glowing, veiny, black rimmed eyes. She continued to mutter “no” to herself, following the road to the best of her ability.

An hour had passed, and as long as she avoided the mirrors and thus Frank, she truly felt she could get to the upstate address mostly unscathed.

She felt what had to be genuine fear. That was something she couldn’t really remember feeling as deeply as she did as a human. What fucked up memory would replay itself next? Who from her past would appear to make her feel helpless?

The few glasses of blood, as she knew, were getting weaker and weaker at their job of keeping her sustained. She saw the road and her dashboard through a dark vignette, banging her head against the seat in some feeble attempt to keep herself more present.

Soon she felt something cold and wet sliding onto her hand through her fingers and down her wrist. “No…” was the best she could do this time, coming out in almost a whimper as the familiar black mass wrapped around the steering wheel and continued to slip down her arms until the area was covered in slimy black.

She could only hear whispers upon whispers until they were incoherent. Some words that slipped through, she recognized from phrases it used to chant to her while using her body. Her body was always being used, it seemed.

The whispers grew until she felt like they were literally crawling out of her ears to join the growing mass over her arms and torso. Her eyes burned with tears and her foot pressed harder on the gas, speeding up until it filled her vision.

“It’s not real Andy,” she spoke, finally caving to the disorientation she felt. Had she stopped the car? Did she crash? Would she? She honestly didn’t know.

_

Andrea hadn’t woken up in a bed this soft since she spent the night at Johnny’s. Due to the fact that she wasn’t in Johnny’s home, confusion hit pretty quickly. She opened her eyes to a bedroom with high ceilings and tall windows, sunlight pouring in somehow and...not burning her skin off. That was even more confusing.

“Did you sleep well?” She barely had time to collect her thoughts before a short suited man stood in the doorway.

“I...sure,” she replied, sitting up from under the comforters and wiping her eyes. “Um, where am I?”

“Apologies, you’ve been in a state since you’ve gotten here. I’m Alan, I work for Audra Langman. This is her home,” he explained, smiling and waving a hand towards the end of the large bed. “If you don’t mind getting dressed in some clean clothes, you can meet me downstairs for more to eat.”

More?

She looked at the clothes on the bed, a sweatshirt with a faded college logo on it and a pair of leggings.

“Oh, and miss?” She looked up when Alan paused in the door, smiling still with a knowing look twinkling in his eyes. “We disposed of the body for you.”

_______________

Andy had a moment upstairs trying to figure out how she made it here, why she was in a mansion, why she was inexplicably fed and why Audra had a new last name. But she figured she wouldn’t get the answers to those questions if she stayed upstairs just staring at everything.

In her new clean clothes, she entered the kitchen to find a glass of dark red liquid on the counter. Walking up to it, she realized it was still warm once she picked it up. She was real tired of taking blood from strangers without knowing their origin but it smelled so good, like it was fresh. Hunger always won.

As she finished off the glass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, Alan was in her line of view again.

“You’re kind of sneaky,” she said, licking her lips.

“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, miss. Now that you’re fed, Audra is going to meet you in the sunroom. You can follow me,” he said, waving and walking out of the room with her on his coattails.

She couldn’t believe she was here, after everything. She found her and she wasn’t dead and they were in a fancy house with a butler, and the sun that shone through the windows didn’t burn her. As she followed him, she couldn’t help but look at every surface. It had truly been so long since she’d seen sunlight, she forgot she missed it.

“Right in here,” Alan said, holding a hand out. She walked past him into the plant filled sunroom. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, almost too distracted by the brightness of the colors -- straight sun hitting the veiny colorful leaves of all her plants. It was beautiful and for the first time in forever, she really wanted to paint.

“It’s nice isn’t it?”

Andy froze at the sound of her voice, something she only knew from fuzzy childhood memories now directly in earshot. She’d only spoken four words and Andrea knew. That velvety, deep, slightly raspy tone was her mom. She finally looked up from the plant she was fixated on and made eye contact with the woman. Audra continued speaking before she could muster a response.

“The sun, I mean. That enchantment was a hard one,” she said, laughing and going to sit on a wicker couch in the middle of it all. There was another one directly across from it beyond a coffee table and Andrea followed her, choosing that one as a seat. She was unsure how close they should be.

“It’s...I didn’t know it was possible,” she managed, looking around at the windows and rays more. “The whole place is uh, pretty magical.” She knew she had so much to say, and Audra was examining her intensely. 

“So, you probably have a lot to say,” her mother expressed, basically parroting her thoughts. She crossed her toned legs under the black slip she wore under a black silk robe. Andrea wondered if she stayed in her pajamas all the time. If she lived in a house like this she probably would too.

“Yeah. I just don’t know where to start I guess.” She looked down and fiddled with the bottom of the old sweatshirt. “I made this decision to come find you and it felt so dead-ended and hopeless for years that now that I’m like, here I almost don’t know what I wanted anymore.”

“I get that.” Audra stayed silent for a few moments to let her get her thoughts in line. Finally, Andrea went on.

“Well I guess I can start by asking why you have a different last name and why I kind of just woke up here? I don’t remember a lot.”

“Okay,” Audra began. “I married Martin Langman about 3 years ago. He’s a piece of shit, but this house is his, he does what I ask of him and I come and go as I please. You woke up here because my gardener saw your van skidded off the side of the road. Looked like you got here, almost, and then passed out. You were practically shaking and you’d scratched yourself up a bit. We fed you so you could stabilize and got you into a bed. Got rid of the trash in your van, too. How long have you been like this?” She leaned back on the couch, legs still crossed.

“Uh, I guess roughly five years or so. Time started to blur a little after a while,” Andy replied, maintaining eye contact and trying her best to read her.

“You don’t like it.”

“It’s...taken some getting used to.”

“Nah, you’re still not used to it. Or you wouldn’t be carrying bodies and searching for Long Lost Mommy,” the woman said, leaning forward to pick up the mug of tea that had been waiting for her on the coffee table. Andrea steeled her spine a bit, tensing at her words.

“Maybe not. Guess we all couldn’t slip into it effortlessly,” Andrea replied, barely holding back the resentment in her tone.

“Of course I didn’t slip into it effortlessly. No one does,” Audra said with a small eye roll. “But I will say perhaps it was easier for me because I didn’t spend my time obsessing over my human life and what I had to leave behind.”

“That’s not easy for everyone like it was for you. That’s all I’m saying. Some of us have regrets about leaving people behind.” Andrea clenched her fists a little bit, trying to keep herself even, but everything Audra said, every look she gave -- it didn’t feel familial between them. There wasn’t even a fondness. A lot of questions she had were already being answered by the way the woman acted. When Audra laughed, Andy had to clench a little more.

“You resent me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I guess that’s fair. Comes with the territory. And I get it. It wasn’t exactly my plan to have a daughter. I never wanted the responsibility but there you were. And I tried the mothering role, I really did. I tried reading to you, singing to you, hoping to feel that connection other moms never shut up about.” She scoffed a little and set her tea down, settling back into the couch. “So I get why you’d grow up, human and vulnerable, wondering what happened to me and if we had all these lovely things in common or if I was missing you. That has a big effect on a child. I get it.”

It was Andrea’s turn to laugh. “I don’t think you get it.”

“I really do apologize, Andrea. Maybe I don’t get it emotionally, but it makes sense that you’d hate me. Unfortunately it’s a risk I was willing to take in the back of an alley with a traveler while your father waited for me at home. It sounds ugly, but sweetheart,” she ran a hand through her thick dark hair, messy and just like Andrea’s. “I will always put myself first. As a human, as a witch, as a vampire. Family is the center of some people’s world, but that’s just never been me.”

“How nice that must’ve been for you to be able to make the conscious human decision to fuck off despite having a husband and daughter.”

“Frank!” Audra exclaimed, clearly unfazed by Andrea’s words and going into a soft expression and a smile that was almost pitying. “Frank Sheldon. I really do think about him occasionally.”

“Occasionally.”

“Yeah. He was a nice guy and it’s ultimately why we didn’t work. Typical college white boy in a band who was dying for some girl to sweep him off his feet and distract him from how boring his life had been up until that point. And he was cute. I liked him for a while, then I got pregnant.”

Andrea let out a dry laugh. Every expectation she had was shattered by this little convo. It’s not like she didn’t think about the possibility of being disappointed, but Andy just didn’t expect her to be...such a bitch?

“So you liked him until you got pregnant.” Maybe repeating her own words would make her realize they were shitty? She wasn’t sure why she kept doing it.

“Yep.” No change in expression. She just looked so casual, like Andy was just an old girlfriend who showed up on her doorstep. “He got so domestic. All we did was fuck and play music and ride around but as soon as we were in that doctor’s office, all he wanted to do was settle down after that. He got that place from his grandmother and started talking about fate, how everything was lining up and we would be just as in love if we settled down. I was barely in love with him before that. After I had you I realized I was basically committing to all this stuff I didn’t want. I didn’t stumble upon an out, I was actively searching for one.”

“So why not let me die out there in the van?” Andy asked, crossing her own legs.

“Doesn’t look cute in front of a mansion,” Audra said simply. “Okay, that was a joke.” She added that when Andrea scooted forward like she was going to get up.

“Was it, though?” 

“Half. It really would look bad, and maybe it’s because my blood runs through you and you actually found me and the ancestors pushed me to do something about the state you were in. At the very least it’s embarrassing. Also, I knew you were coming.”

Andrea furrowed her brows. “How?”

“The cards. Of course it wasn’t spelled out for me, but the entire reading surrounded the Daughter of Wands. That’s not me, and it’s not anyone in my life currently. Everything else said travel, transformation, subsequent Nine of Swords…I just knew the reading wasn’t about me. You were coming.”

“And here I am,” Andy replied, sighing and sinking a little into the couch.

“Here you are. And I’m sorry, Andrea.”

“Why do I just feel like you’re not? You don’t really seem like the type to say sorry.”

“No, I am. I’m not sorry in the sense that I apologize, but I’m sorry you’ve been starving yourself for years and trying to find me. If I could, I would have told you to save yourself the trip. I’m sorry you spent your newborn years looking for me instead of spending them discovering yourself. That’s what I did. It’s what most new vampires do. Not you.”

“Discovering myself,” Andy said, laughing. “It’s not Eat, Pray, Love.”

“You can joke all you want to, but look at yourself, Andrea. Maybe you didn’t want to be a vampire. Maybe you didn’t choose it. But here you are. You resent me because I didn’t cling to my humanity, but you’re clinging so hard, you don’t even know who you are. That Andy is gone. Accept that.” 

Andrea’s eyes flashed red and finally, she stood.

“You don’t get to call me that. Boring Frank calls me that.”

Audra put her hands up in defense and stood as well. “Didn’t mean to step on toes.” 

“I’m gonna go. Don’t wanna take up too much more of your time,” Andrea said, patting down the pockets of her pants out of habit. She guessed all her stuff was in her car. As if on cue, Alan appeared in the sunroom with her keys extended.

“Your van is in the garage, miss. We took the liberty of cleaning it. You can follow me to get there.”

“Thanks, mister,” she mumbled, taking the keys and turning to look at her mother once more. Audra was still giving her this pitying yet curious look that Andrea realized she hated. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

She didn’t wait for a response, following Alan to the garage so she could leave this place. 

Not only was her van clean and the body gone, it seemed like they cleaned the blankets too, the errant blood stains she’d grown used to being either faded or completely gone. “Thanks again,” she said, closing the back doors and looking across the garage at Alan.

“Do you think it’s time to go home?” he asked. She wondered if he listened to their conversation. She wouldn’t have blamed him.

“Yeah, Alan,” she called back, flipping the keys in her palm and biting her lip. “I think it’s probably time to do that.”

[racingtoaredlight]

RTARL’s NFL Week 6 Extravapalooza

In this reporter’s opinion, Week 6 brings us BY FAR the the strongest slate of games we’ve had this season. For example, a game pitting a normal squad against either Miami or Washington is automatically a dud based on their respective shittiness, but this week those two poor, unfortunate teams are facing EACH OTHER to determine the King of Crap Mountain. It’s a must-watch for fans of trashy entertainment, imo.

But that’s not all! We’ve also got a showdown pitting two “Future Face of the League”-level QBs against one another in Kansas City, Lamar Jackson facing a weak opponent that should allow him to do crazy things again, and several match-ups between legitimate playoff contenders. Even the boring-ass Titans and Broncos have the courtesy to confine themselves to a single game this week so they can be easily ignored. AND it all starts at 9:30 AM Eastern Time because of the NFL’s ridiculous insistence on playing games in a far away land that couldn’t care less about American football! It should be a fun day, please make sure you have plenty of snacks.

You know the drill by now, my picks are in BOLD, and the lines are courtesy of Vegas Insider.

EARLY GAMES

9:30 AM EST Kickoff: Carolina Panthers (-2.5) vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers (in London)

Panthers QB Kyle Allen has made me look like a dumb dick for insisting that he sucks, there’s no doubt about it. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop, of course. KYLE ALLEN ISN’T GOOD AND THE TEAM IS WINNING WITH DEFENSE AND MCCAFFERY! 

Speaking of the Panthers’ defense, CB James Bradberry is having an awesome season, and he should keep Bucs WR Mike Evans in check. This means that Tampa’s other stud WR, Chris Godwin, should feast once again. This will infuriate me personally, as someone who owns Evans in fantasy and traded away Godwin recently.

Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens (-11)

If the Ravens can’t take care of business against the beat-up, sad-sack Bengals, I’ll have no choice but to accept that I jumped the gun with my Lamar Jackson excitement. I’m picking them to beat the 11-point spread in large part because I long for the halcyon days of Week 2, when Lamar was racking up comical statistics and a man’s word still MEANT something, ya know?

Seattle Seahawks (-1.5) at Cleveland Browns

I think the fact that he’s one of the world’s foremost goobers obscures the fact that Russell Wilson is one of the best handful of players in the entire NFL. In all seriousness, how many QBs would you take over Wilson? For me, Patrick Mahomes and Gardner Minshew are the only guys I’d have ahead of him.

I’m torn between wanting the Browns to be good because I like a bunch of their players as individuals, and wishing for the comfort and reassurance that knowing that they are and always will be a smoldering trash heap provides. The Browns’ perpetual ineptitude can be the anchor we all need in these times of great upheaval. 

Houston Texans at Kansas City Chiefs (-4)

Mahomes! Watson! Hopkins! Hill (probably)! Watt! Mathieu! Hardman! Mercilus! I know the names of several players involved in this game!

This should be a fun one, I give the edge to K.C. because Andy Reid is way better than Bill O’Brien at this whole “coaching NFL football” thing.

New Orleans Saints at Jacksonville Jaguars (-2.5)

Philadelphia Eagles at Minnesota Vikings (-3)

This one feels like a tough, low-scoring brawl to me. I like it very much as a counterweight to the Chiefs-Texans for watchin’-em-up purposes. Eagles-Vikings will be a game dictated by field position, patience, and a few well-timed risks. A slow-burn that rewards those paying attention, as opposed to the constant pyrotechnics and roller-coaster action K.C. - Houston should provide. To put it into seasonally appropriate terms, Vikings-Eagles is “The VVitch,” Chiefs-Texans is “IT.” 

Washington Football Team (-3.5) at Miami Dolphins

I love this perfect storm of garbage so much. With the caveat that you should CLEARLY never take gambling advice from me, there’s no way in hell anyone should feel confident betting on this game in any form or fashion. There’s almost nothing that could happen during these 60 minutes (at least!) that would surprise me. 

LATE GAMES

Atlanta Falcons (-2.5) at Arizona Cardinals

I just can’t with the Falcons anymore. They need to make wholesale changes, in my opinion as a certified football genius. Hey, why not reunite Julio Jones with Kyle Shanahan and trade him to the 49ers? Jon Gruden would probably trade 4 1st round picks for Matt Ryan. BLOW IT UP! 

There’s a chance David Johnson isn’t going to play in this one, I’m making my pick assuming he will and that he’ll be close to his usual self. 

San Francisco 49ers at Los Angeles Rams (-3) 

I originally had the Rams here, but now that Todd Gurley has been ruled out I had to make a change. It’s not that Gurley has been even close to the MVP-level form he showed most of last season, but what he has been is a reliable safety-valve for Jared Goff in the passing game. The Niners can really rush the passer, ergo Goff will need to get rid of the ball quickly, ergo Gurley would’ve really helped. I don’t even know if I’m using “ergo” correctly. ERGO FUCK YOURSELF.

I want to buy the San Fran hype, but I fully acknowledge that THEY AIN’T PLAYED NOBODY, PAWWWL!  This game will be their toughest test yet, even without having to deal with Gurley. 

Dallas Cowboys (-7) at New York Jets

via GIPHY

Tennessee Titans at Denver Broncos (-2)

Don’t even glance at this shit by accident. 

Sunday Night Game: Pittsburgh Steelers at Los Angeles Chargers (-6.5)

The Chargers at home against a reeling Pittsburgh team starting undrafted free-agent rookie third-stringer Devlin Hodges at QB--what could go wrong? If there’s one team that could blow a layup like this, it is DEFINITELY the Phil Rivers-era Chargers. I’d be actively rooting for that very thing if their opponent were anyone other than the loathsome Steelers. I’m enjoying their demise too much to want it to stop now. 

Monday Night Game: Detroit Lions at Green Bay Packers (-4)

I.....am buying the Lions being legit this season? This seems like a mistake, but here we are. I’ve always felt a kinship with Matthew Stafford since we’re both cursed/blessed with 12-year-old faces on the bodies of multimillionaire professional athletes. So, I’m rooting for him to lead Detroit to glory. I think the true star of this game will be Kerryon Johnson, because he’s awesome and Green Bay struggles defending the run. 

I’m enjoying the Aaron Rodgers-Matt LeFleur weekly sideline spats. I actually think their dynamic is much healthier than the passive-aggressive proxy war Rodgers was constantly waging with former Head Bitch In Charge Mike McCarthy. I reserve the right to change my mind on this if Rodgers strangles LeFleur with piano wire during this game.

Last Week’s Record: 8-6

Season Record: 29-42-1