The figure

I wrote a new story that day. Here it is, enjoy !




The Figure

It was 3 am . Yellow streetlights lit up the otherwise dark street, where a figure was hurrying along. Suddenly, she paused, rummaged in her overcoat and took out a piece of paper. There were two numbers scrawled on it - 32. She glanced at it for about two seconds, then continued, only this time, she paused at each house to look at their number.
‘28...30.…..32 !’ she muttered.

The next minute, she was scaling over the wall. What she did not know was that the pumpkin was watching her. The jack-o-lantern narrowed its eyes, as it watched her while sitting on top of the neighbour’s wall, where Madison had left it. It had heard her wonder out loud earlier, whether anything would happen, but yet, what it couldn’t understand was she had gone in and sleep, which meant that she wouldn’t get to see anything even if something did happen. Something like this.

The figure had reached the top of the wall. She looked down, and jumped, landing with a soft thud on her feet. Almost like a cat. She got up and made her way over the flowerbed -which was not easy- to the house.

Suddenly, Jack saw something behind her. A translucent figure!
It walked -in a floating kind of way- towards her, then bent towards her ear and whispered, ‘I knew that you’d come-’.
However, before it could say anymore, the girl whipped her head around and screamed!
Jack glared at her, and said, ‘Shut up! You don’t want to wake the whole neighbourhood, do you ?’
The girl was about to scream again when she saw Jack talking, but stopped just in time when she noticed the translucent figure properly. Her eyes went wide.
Then she said, ‘Stephanie!’
‘Hush, Leigh, hush. They don’t know I’m here, but I know that you’d come, so I didn’t wait. Oh, Leigh, it was killing me…’the translucent figure -which appeared to be Stephanie- said, and she and Leigh embraced each other.
Which was somewhat impossible, but they managed it.
‘It killed you, didn’t it?’ Leigh whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Stephanie just nodded.

‘What the heck is going on here?’ said a velvet voice behind Jack.
Jack jumped and spun around, nearly losing his balance because firstly, the wall wasn’t that thick, and secondly, a beautiful vampire was standing there. At first look, no human would have guessed that it was a vampire. Nevertheless, Jack was no human, and that was no ordinary night -it was Halloween, and who else except Leigh, of course, would be out during this unearthly hour- and also because, Jack knew,

‘No fangs, vampy?’ Jack asked jokingly.
The vampire bared its perfect white teeth, then laughed -a musical tinkle- , ‘I didn’t come to hunt, it would’ve only been too obvious, being Halloween and all,’ he replied. ‘By the way, what’s going on here?’
‘I have simply no idea.’ Jack replied, so the vampire shouted -as loud as it could without disturbing the sleeping people- , ‘Hey, you two! What’s going on?’
Leigh and Stephanie turned round, and nearly fainted. Because, the vampire was one of the most bedazzling creatures they had ever seen in their entire lives.

The vampire frowned, then said to Jack, ‘Man, humans are weird!’ , to which Jack replied, ‘That’s only normal,’ , then added, ‘But I think that the translucent one is not human.’
Which was correct, as Stephanie was already a spirit by then. Her body was upstairs, lying peacefully as the rest of the world slept on.

When Leigh caught her breath, she walked together with Stephanie to the wall by the bed of flowers, and the vampire leaped over the wall in one graceful leap, taking Jack under its arm. He landed with no noise, and all that was done in less than a second.

‘Hey girls,’ he greeted them. ‘What are you doing here at this unearthly hour?’ he asked, to which Leigh replied, ‘It’s a long story.’
‘Well, I’m listening, aren’t I ? And so is Jack,’ the vampire said, then added, ’I’m Corro.’ He smiled, nearly giving Leigh a heart attack.

She cleared her throat. ‘Well, it all started-’ then she stopped.
‘Go on,’ Corro urged.
‘It’s not really interesting, the story. It’s just…weird.’
‘Suits Halloween!’ piped in Jack, and so Leigh continued, grinning a little.

‘Ok, so we -’she indicated Stephanie ‘-have known each other since primary school. We were best friends -almost. Then we went to the same high school. We were still friends, then suddenly, none of us knows what happened, but our friendship candle melted right down to the bottom -like there was a time limit for our friendship- and our friendship was like …gone.’

Leigh glanced at Stephanie, who was watching her tell their story through her still visibly hazel eyes. She smiled when Leigh caught her gaze, and Leigh continued.
‘We didn’t know what was happening, and still don’t. I mean, we didn’t fight or anything, nut it was just like, the end. We didn’t even smile when we caught each other’s gazes, it was bizarre!’ Leigh shuddered.
‘Then there was graduation, and still nothing. Two years passed, and the next thing I knew, I got a call from Stephanie’s sister a week ago. She told me that-’ Leigh paused.
‘She said that …Stephanie was ill. She was dying. She asked me to come.’ Leigh put her face in her hands.
‘I wondered what to do. I was a coward…’
‘Don’t say that! You aren’t!’ interrupted Stephenie.
Leigh smiled at her, saying thanks, but I don’t really need that, with her eyes, and continued.Jack and Corro looked on intently.
‘Yes, I was a coward. It took me five days -five whole days!- to make up my mind. But yes, I did the right thing -I hope- , I came. Yet, I had to come at night. Which is weird, I know, sorry Steph.’ Leigh stopped, but Stephanie continued, ‘But you came, yes, you came. That’s all I would’ve wanted. And here we are . And that’s -’ Stephenie looked up at Corro and Jack, ‘-the story.’

‘One more day with you…’ Leigh whispered, but all three heard her.

Leigh was right. The next day, Stephenie’s mum went into Stephenie’s room, and touched her. Her body was cold.
Her mum’s legs gave way beneath her and she crumpled to the ground, tears running down her cheeks, and never stopped till someone found her.
She knew that Stepahnie had been sick for a ling time, and she knew that Stephanie had kept up for much longer than everyone had expected. Still, her death came as a shock, as all deaths do.

By that time, Stephanie’s spirit was gone too. So was the vampire. The candle inside Jack had blown out, and all that was left were only three dark holes when Madison when to collect it in the morning. And once again, she wondered if anything had happened.

But nobody knew. Nobody, except a figure, with tears streaming down her cheeks, making her way back home.

Originally created & written by,
Yi Lin.


27th October 2008