James McCann - Kith3

VIP免费
2024-12-18 0 0 339.4KB 62 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
K
K
KI
I
IT
T
TH
H
H
P
P
Pr
r
rt
a
a
at
t
T
T
Te
h
h
hr
r
re
ee
e
e
“HOW ODD IS MAN’S ABOMINABLE ATTEMPT TO CREATE ARTIFICIAL
LIFE; HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING FROM OUR OWN REBELLION
AGAINST HE WHO CREATED US?”
The Kith – 1 –
C
C
CH
H
HA
A
AP
P
PT
T
TE
E
ER
R
R
O
O
ON
N
NE
E
E
JULY 2010
The Farcus Café was just one business within a strip mall of many. Years ago the old
gas pumps had been dug up and covered, making room for a hair stylist, dollar store,
bookshop and grocer. It still resided on an exit from Highway 1 but was now in the
town’s outskirts and not outside the town. It had turned from a desolate gas station to a
bustling meeting place for truckers when old Farcus had passed on and his tycoon son
had taken over. It was a business run on profit and no longer on guilt.
One hour ‘til close, Melanie thought as she looked up at the clock above the doorway.
The café was the last business to close, and was usually bustling right until Midnight. But
tonight things had calmed shortly after seven, which suited her just fine. It had given her
a chance to mop, dust and merchandise for the morning.
Sunday nights were never the busiest, nor the most interesting. Even the radio station
had taken to replaying hits from the 90s, such as Amanda Marshall’s “Let It Rain” which
was on now. Guitar and vocals, not much talent needed there. Certainly not as much as
the current style of computer generated songs. Anyone could train their voice, but few
could master the complexities of an electronic language.
Lost in the solitude of her own thoughtful meandering, hypnotised by the repetitive
task of cleaning the counter, it was no wonder she jumped when the door-chime sounded.
Melanie smiled, looked up to see a young man, and glanced at the clock. Twenty
minutes to close. Please don’t stay long, she hoped. This gentleman looked freaky,
Adam’s Family freaky, dressed in a morbid trench coat and wide collared shirt. He had
his hands tucked deep into his pockets and his head tilted so that his long, Midnight hair
fell over his face. In his icy blue gaze was the melancholy of a broken heart and in his
walk a deliberateness that displayed purpose. He strolled to the stool in front of where
she cleaned, met her gaze, smiled and sat. Melanie smiled back.
“Hi,” Melanie said and waited for him to answer. When he didn’t she asked, “Can I
get you a coffee?”
“No.” He stared at her as though trying to transfix her with his gaze. “Have we met?”
“I don’t think so,” Melanie said and looked at the security camera.
The stranger stared long past that moment and did not look away until after Melanie
asked, “Do you need directions? Or medication of some sort?”
“I’m sorry.” He put out his hand in a gesture that said, “Allow me to explain.” His
gaze wandered toward the window, at where his reflection would have been had it not
been for the display of Coffee Crisp bars. He sighed, smiled and tapped his palms on the
counter.
He said, “I have been on the road for many days and am very tired. The Greyhound
driver said this was the best coffee in Manitoba, so perhaps I should start with that.”
“Well okay then. Dare I complicate things further and ask regular, decaf or
espresso?”
The Kith – 2 –
He laughed. “Just a regular, black, boring cup of Java … second thought, with cream
and sugar.”
Melanie found herself staring at him. His eyes had intensity about tem as though he
had lived many lives but all at once. Whether it was wisdom or a life led unapologetic
she could not be sure. The stranger made an obvious show of glancing at the security
camera, just as she had when he stared at her, and Melanie laughed. She creeped out the
creep.
“Cream and sugar is on the counter,” she said as she turned to the coffeepot behind
her. After grabbing a cup from the cupboard below the carafe she filled it with steaming
brew.
“I love the scent of coffee,” she said and turned to hand the cup to the customer.
“Spoken like a true addict! Why don’t you join me in a toast?”
“I don’t think my boyfriend would approve.” A lie she had rehearsed so often even
she sometimes believed it.
The stranger opened two creamers and a packet of sugar. After pouring them into his
drink he stirred until the black fluid turned golden brown. He sighed again and the said,
“I just thought it might be a nice welcome.”
“You’re staying?”
“Returning. I went away to school.”
Melanie started cleaning. “High school? You don’t look old enough for university.”
At the same time that the stranger laughed the door chimed. Melanie looked at the
clock that read five minutes to close as five men entered. Each sported leather jackets,
caps and sneakers with heels that lit whenever pressed. With practised unison they
surrounded the stranger, two on his right, two on his left and one behind.
“Well, well, well. Isn’t this all cosy and nice,” the fifth said.
Melanie looked at the stranger, her light blue eyes like a cold cloth on a fresh burn.
When she turned her gaze on the man behind him she snapped, “Robert! This is a
customer!”
“Customer?” Robert pushed against the stranger. “I didn’t see any trucks outside,
which makes him a drifter. Why don’t you continue to drift, punk.”
The stranger rose and turned to face the young man. He stood only as high as
Robert’s shoulders, but, though dwarfed by his bulk, a confidence emanated from the
stranger’s eyes that made the gang leader wary.
“My name is Trent.” He held out his hand in friendship.
“Get lost punk.”
“How about we all join one another in a cup of coffee? My treat.”
Robert suddenly grabbed him and pivoted his body, throwing him toward the door.
Trent stumbled, but caught his balance. Smiling, he placed a loony and two quarters on
the nearest table.
“For the coffee and the service.” The stranger turned and walked out the door.
“Punk chicken shit is what he is.” Robert called, his voice drowned by the bell’s
jingle.
Melanie, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips, said, “Why are you so mean?”
Robert turned to her and sat on a stool. He leaned against the counter. “Go out with
me and I guarantee I’ll be nice.”
His two buddies sat beside him, both laughing. Melanie turned away.
The Kith – 3 –
“Don’t hold your breath,” she said, cleaning the coffee maker.
“You telling me that you’d fuck Matt, but you won’t give me a ride?”
“I didn’t fuck Matt. We made love.”
“Aww, ain’t that sweet. But when he tells the story, and he does it a lot, he talks ‘bout
you like just another slut.”
Melanie’s muscles stiffened. “Maybe you should ask him for a fuck.”
“Y’know bitch, one of these days I’m just going to take what I want.”
Melanie’s hands trembled, and standing tall she tried to hide her fear beneath a veil of
anger. “Not a good idea to talk like that with the surveillance cameras.”
Robert laughed. “They don’t have sound. I’m leaving now, but sooner or later I’ll get
what I want.”
Melanie held her composure as Robert and his buddies left. But as though the bell’s
jingle were a sprite whose song stole her strength her knees buckled and she collapsed in
tears against the counter.
Then a voice: “There is no need for your tears, you were never alone.”
Melanie raised her face from her palms to see the stranger. “How did you ... the bell
never...”
“You must not have heard it over your weeping. I apologise if my presence has
frightened you, but after I left I realised I’d forgotten something.”
“What?”
“My manners. I’m Trent,” he said, extending his hand to her.
“I know. I heard you tell Robert.”
His eyes grew glossy, and he stared into a world beyond that which Melanie could
see. “How strange I would introduce myself to him, and not my hostess.” He still
extended his hand, but when his voice became as distant as his gaze she didn’t take it.
Then, as if he were in a dream he said, “I knew a man like him once.”
Melanie laughed, breaking his dream-like state. Taking his hand she said, “I’m
Melanie. Why do you talk like you’re an old man? You can’t be more than twenty. If
even that.”
He counted off three of his fingers and smiled. “Nineteen, I suppose. I guess when
you uproot a familiar world and later reflect upon it, it seems like a lifetime ago.”
“I guess. Listen, I’d pour you another cup of coffee but I just poured out the pot. Can
I get you something else?”
“Tea?”
“Sure. Hot water and a bag, what could be simpler.” She smiled. “So, you said you
were visiting. Mind if I ask who?”
“Not at all.”
Melanie grabbed a tea-pot from beneath the counter and, after pouring hot water into
it, she tossed in a couple of tea bags. Taking a hot-plate from the same place as she had
got the pot she placed both in front of Trent. Still waiting for him to answer, she took his
wide smile to heart and asked, “Well?”
“You haven’t asked yet,” he chuckled.
“Who’re you visiting?”
“The Powers.”
“Oh. I don’t know them. My mom probably does, she knows everybody.” Turning
she grabbed a couple of mugs.
The Kith – 4 –
“They were my parents.”
“‘Were?’ You mean they aren’t anymore?” she turned back, placing the two mugs on
the counter.
“They died about,” again he counted on his fingers, “a year and a half ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry ... it must have been tough to lose them at such a young age.”
“It’s tough at any age.” He sipped the hot tea, his eyes looking distant.
“Where are you staying?” Melanie cocked her head and slowly brought her mug of
steaming tea to her lips. When she sipped it the tea burned her tongue. “Ow! How can
you stand the sting?”
“That’s unfair. You’ve asked two questions. Of them, I shall answer but one.”
She smiled and blew the steam away from her mug. “Okay. Where are you staying?”
He looked thoughtful a moment. “I never really considered it. Could you direct me to
a hotel?”
“I can do better. We have a guest room in our backyard. It’s sort of humble, but...”
“It will do fine.”
Melanie wasn’t sure how her mother would react when she saw the stranger she’d
brought home. Speeding down the highway in her Datsun station wagon, she glanced at
him. He stared out the window at the stars with a look in his eye as if he knew them
personally. She felt as though she was returning an orphan to his home, and not at all like
she was bringing home a stranger who had come to pay respects to his deceased parents.
He was so calm that Melanie had no worry that he might be some kind of lunatic. Of
course, her mother was another story.
But even if he was, she would at least take comfort in knowing that the guest-house
was self-contained from the main house.
“How long will you be staying?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” His voice sounded like the rain’s empty patter on a dark summer
night.
“When do you have to be back at school?”
Melanie stared straight ahead at the approaching houses. She heard him shuffle, and
knew he had repositioned himself to look at her. When next he spoke he did so with a
tone that made her want to hold him. And yet all he said was: “I may not go back.”
“You’re going to drop out? Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean...”
“Please,” his voice brought a tear to her eye, “there will be so much time for
questions. I have had a long trip.” He again turned to look at the heavens. “I don’t mean
to sound rude, but...”
“It’s okay. I have a bad habit of talking too much.” She pulled the car against a curb
in front of a yellow house trimmed with light brown. “We’re home anyway. Mine’s the
ugly one. Well, the yellow ugly one.”
Melanie climbed out of the car as did Trent. She watched him scan the
neighbourhood, a smile grew over his solemn face.
“Where did you live?”
“Here.”
“Here? My house? My mom bought this house thirteen years ago.”
The Kith – 5 –
“Sorry, I didn’t mean your home.” He turned to face her, his pale complexion burning
red. “I meant next door. Here, next door.”
“Oh. Come on in, I’ll introduce you to my mother.”
“I’d like that.”
Melanie strolled up the walk onto the stoop and through the front entrance. Trent
followed, closing the door behind him. He looked about the house, first at the sunken
living room on the right then at the reading-room on the left. Taking a few steps he
examined the tall staircase and, looking down the hall beside it, he peered into the
kitchen.
“I like your home.”
“Thanks. Why don’t you go into the living room and sit, I’ll get my mom. She never
comes down before...”
“Putting on her face,” Trent said, walking into the living room.
Melanie stared at him, wondering if it was his intention to come home with her all
along.
She bounded up the stairs two at a time until she came to its top. Rushing down the
hall past her room, she caressed the banister the entire way and stopped only when she
came to her Mother’s room. The door was closed as usual and, tapping on it, she waited.
“Come in Melanie,” her mother called.
Melanie opened the door and leaned against its frame. “Can we talk?”
Her mother was curled on her window-seat with only a reading lamp drilled into the
wall above her for light. Her large window was open, with the curtains drawn and a
gentle breeze whispering in. She was reading a novel, another vampire horror, and
holding up an index finger she quickly finished her paragraph. Closing the book she
guffawed, as if she actually knew what “real” vampires were like.
“Of course we can talk.”
“Uhm,” Melanie sat on the edge of the bed, lips pursed. She could no longer look her
mom head-on but had to fixate on the mirrored reflection cast against the closed portion
of the window. “Remember when you said you wished we could be more charitable?”
“Y-ess, why?”
“Well, there’s this guy who came into the diner tonight, and he needs a place to
stay...”
“Stop right there young lady. You don’t propose we let this stranger stay with us, do
you? He could be a rapist!”
“He isn’t! He couldn’t be. And I thought he could stay in the guest house.” Melanie
paused and looked at her mother. Then she whispered: “He’s downstairs.”
“Oh Melanie!” her mother said, raising her hands and burying her face in them. She
lost the place she held in her book. “What am I going to do with you?”
“He’s in town to visit his parent’s grave and pay respects.”
“His dead parents? Are you kidding me? This gets better and better. Who are these
people?”
“The Powers,” Melanie whispered. “I never heard of them, but...” she stopped. Her
mother had turned a shade of white like none she had ever seen before, and slowly she
rose.
“He’s here?”
“Yeah. Downstairs.”
The Kith – 6 –
Melanie’s mother stood beneath the arch that opened up the sunken living room to the
foyer, staring at the stranger within. He stood by the window, looking out with his back
to her, and when he didn’t turn she assumed he hadn’t heard her. She tried to speak, but
no words came to her.
Then he said, “Hello Jen.”
“Trent?” Tears overwhelmed her like a storm over a midsummer’s day.
He turned and walked to her, embracing her tightly. She held him, too, and
whispered, “It’s been so long. Why did you never write?”
“I wanted to, but every one of your letters seemed so different.” He broke their
embrace and walked to the window. “You’re no longer my little sister.”
“Y’know, when we were kids, I hated it when you called me that.” Jen laughed.
“I still am a teenager. To me, a decade is but a year. To you, a year is but a decade.”
He turned back to her. “As I get older, I understand more and more how meaningless
time is.”
“And seeing you reminds me how meaningful time is.”
He walked to the couch, unable to look at her. Standing poised over the sectional he
pondered whether to sit. When he didn’t, he turned to stare at her with eyes like those of
a parent who had lost their child.
“Do you wonder why I have come?” he asked as though he read her mind.
“Yes,” Jen said, walking to the couch to sit, “but I’m afraid to ask.”
“You know that I have spent the past two ... twenty-two years, learning to defeat the
Dark through Christ.”
She nodded, and he sat beside her. Closing his eyes Trent took several steady breaths
and got that same look on his face as Melanie had when she was two and wanted to know
where her dead goldfish had gone. And when he answered, her heart exploded in the
same deadly fury as it had when she’d explained death to her bewildered daughter.
“I am joining the Dark.”
The Kith – 7 –
C
C
CH
H
HA
A
AP
P
PT
T
TE
E
ER
R
R
T
T
TW
W
WO
O
O
Melanie crept down the wooden steps, testing each one before putting her full weight
upon it. She hunted for the “warning” stair, the one that creaked with a noise that woke
the dead. Well, sleeping mothers anyway. Not that she had ever heard it, but on more
than one occasion it had alerted her mom that she’d broken curfew. When she stepped
from the last one and begun to tip-toe toward the entryway, she wondered if there really
was a “warning” stair.
She crouched close to the ground as if she were a five year old waiting for Santa on
Christmas eve. Her mom and the stranger were whispering, but she managed to hear him
ask, “Will you let me stay?”
Melanie hoped her mom would say “yes,” though she couldn’t figure out why. No,
she could figure that out. He was different; strong, certain, yet kind and friendly. When
she sat with him in the diner she felt safe, and glad for the first time that she lived in
Minnow Creek. “Please mom, say yes,” she whispered.
“Yes, you can stay,” her mother said, the words trailing close on the heels of her
daughter’s plead. “I’ll get my daughter to show you to the guest house.” Then she yelled,
“Melanie?”
“Yes mom?” she said, rising and stepping into the entryway. She blushed, realising
they knew she had been spying.
“Were you eavesdropping?” her mother asked with the same tension as when she’d
asked her whether she and her boyfriend were engaged in sex.
“No,” Melanie answered, the same response as she’d given the question of sex. She
wished one of those times she could have told the truth. “I was just coming down the
stairs.”
“Would you show Trent to the guest house?”
Both she and the stranger held deep breaths, reminding Melanie how her mother had
put condoms inside her dresser as a test. She then told her that if she was going to have
sex then she should use protection; that if she was, then her mother would rather know
she was at least being smart about it.
Every night her mother checked the condoms to see if any had been used, and every
night she found all of them in the drawer. Had her mom checked those in the machine
stationed inside the men’s washroom at the local bar, she would have known differently.
“Sure I will,” Melanie answered, perking an eyebrow when she saw both the stranger
and her mom exhale as if her agreement had assured she hadn’t been listening. It made
her suspicious.…
Trent rose from the couch and faced her mother. Melanie swore she saw a tear trickle
from her eye when the stranger said, “Thank-you Miss Snell.”
“Mrs.,” her mother corrected, “my husband is away on business. And it’s Kraft.”
“Of course. I should have guessed as much.” He turned from her and walked to
Melanie, holding his arm against his body in a triangle. When she took it he asked, “Shall
we?”
“Sure, it’s just out back.”
The Kith – 8 –
Melanie escorted him into the back where a single floor dwelling lay hugged against
a high wooden fence. It had a door facing away from the main house, and a window
facing it. A flower garden had been planted just outside the door and, amidst the flowers,
a wooden cross jetted almost unnoticed toward the heavens.
“It used to be a garage, but my Dad turned it into a guest house.”
Melanie’s voice quieted like a child’s top slowly losing its twirl. She stared mesmerised
at the stranger, who studied the cross buried within the flowers.
“To whom is this in memory?”
“My mom lost her best-friend when she was sixteen. Whenever she misses him she
spends time in her garden. I used to think it was pretty weird, but now...”
“But now?” He turned to her, and she glimpsed embedded within his ocean-eyes
waves wishing to lash out. She turned from them when her own eyes swelled with tears.
“Now I wish her pain would leave.”
“You have been a most kind hostess, but I am tired. Unless the guest house is locked,
I can see myself in.”
“It’s not locked. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Melanie left the stranger alone and rushed into her home. Her mother was still in the
living-room and, before Melanie climbed the stairs to go to her room, she heard her
crying. After closing her door she collapsed onto her bed as though she had just engaged
in some stressful physical activity.
“Strange,” Melanie whispered, reaching for the phone that lay beside her alarm clock
on the night table. She depressed each number without having to think about the
sequence and, when the phone rang, she waited.
“Hello?”
“Hi Alix! How’s it going?”
“Boring. Did you just get home from work?”
“No, ‘bout half hour ago. Robert showed up again.”
“Want me to talk to his Dad? The last time I pretended to be your mother he got a
shit-kicking.”
“No, I don’t think that would solve anything. ‘Sides, I have gossip.”
“Yeah? What?”
Melanie bit her lip, thinking about how much she wanted to tell. She walked to her
window, wishing it faced the back like her mother’s Just her luck to wind up with the one
facing the street corner.
“Well?” Alix pleaded on the phone’s other end.
“This guy came into the diner tonight, and he is so Brad Pitt!”
“He looks like Brad Pitt?”
“No, but he acts like him in Legends of the Fall.”
“Did you get his name or give him your number? You didn’t, did you. Of course not,
you’re too loyal to Matt.”
“He’s staying in my guest-house.”
“Matt?”
“No! Matt and I are over, like since lunch. I caught him with Carol this time. I’m
talking about the guy ... Trent. His name is Trent Powers.”
“How did you get your mom to agree to that?”
“I don’t know, so don’t expect me to repeat it for things we need.”
The Kith – 9 –
“But he is good looking, right? How old is he, your age or mine?”
“You aren’t that much older, my dear.”
“Hey, five years is a long time,” Alix laughed. “So I take it Matt’s been replaced.”
“No. I’m not even sure Trent is staying.”
Trent knelt in the garden, his knee sitting comfortably within an impression.
Emotions swirled in him as though he were a toy soldier discarded by the child for whom
he marched. Caressing the wooden cross he plucked a yellow bloom and laid it before the
marker.
“I am dead in your eyes, aren’t I?” he asked without taking his gaze from the grave.
“Can you tell me that the girl you thought of as a `sister` is not to you?” Jen knelt
beside the grave, placing one hand on his shoulder. “If you came to say good-bye, or
because you needed to see if things really had changed, then I hope you’ve seen enough.”
Jen paused, and staring at him sidelong she pursed her lips. “You didn’t come back to say
good-bye, did you?”
“No, I did not.” Trent rose and walked to her. Placing his hands on her shoulders he
looked deep into her baby blues. “I came to ask for your help.”
Jen felt a numb finger trace over her spine. She wondered what it was that a Kith
could need from her.
Trent smiled with closed lips, though one eye tooth hung out. “You’re afraid to ask
what?”
Jen nodded.
“It isn’t blood, if that’s what worries you. I get drunk on the Holy Spirit, not on
death.”
“That wasn’t what worried me,” Jen’ words were lost under a long sigh.
“You may wish, after I tell you what it is, that it was only blood.” Trent turned from
her and his gaze again fell upon his grave. “Keelin failed in my mission when the Dark
demanded she partake in a Life-drink.”
“So what makes you think you’ll succeed where she failed?”
“Some vampires have mortal slaves, sort of like a portable winery.” Trent turned to
her, his eyes wide like when they were kids and he had asked if she wanted to play
“doctor.”
“I can’t...” she whispered with the same reluctance as she had more than twenty years
ago. “I have a daughter ... a husband...”
“A life.” Trent flushed, and Jen remembered when she had told him about her going
out with Billy Bender.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I came in search of Jen Snell, my `sister.` That was foolish of me. This is
not His plan for you.”
“How do you know? What if it is?”
“It isn’t.” Trent cupped his palm gently beneath her chin. “If it was, He would not
have blessed you with such a beautiful daughter. Your spirit dances in her eyes.”
“But what if this isn’t His plan for you?”
摘要：

KKKIIITTTHHHPPPrrrtaaattTTTehhhrrreeeee“HOWODDISMAN’SABOMINABLEATTEMPTTOCREATEARTIFICIALLIFE;HAVEWELEARNEDNOTHINGFROMOUROWNREBELLIONAGAINSTHEWHOCREATEDUS?”TheKith–1–CCCHHHAAAPPPTTTEEERRROOONNNEEEJULY2010TheFarcusCaféwasjustonebusinesswithinastripmallofmany.Yearsagotheoldgaspumpshadbeendugupandcovere...

展开>> 收起<<
James McCann - Kith3.pdf

共62页,预览13页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：62 页 大小：339.4KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-18

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 62
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注