Paul and Storm

by N.K.L. Storm

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs, administered by Paul and Storm]

[editor’s note: “Emily” once again left the chapter in the editor’s mailbox with a note, this time written on a slip of paper that, despite efforts to obscure its origins, was quite clearly from a “Hello Kitty” notepad. It read “Hey. Please tell my fans <3 that I’m sorry about not supplying them with my eloqutive sustains in a more timely fashion. I think my slaptard brother knows about it (like I care!) but I don’t want him telling my mom and getting me all grounded again, so I had to wait until it was possible for me to obtain great stealth, which heretofore I have achieved.”]

Strange things were afoot upon the piebald moors that were the outer skirts of Emily’s stupid small town. Misty, swirly, swanky figures appeared there as apparitions, gathering then themselves together with bad intent, for sure. Together they swayed a terrible sway, in a manner that would certainly be recognized by an ancient and quite possibly prehistoric person, who otherwise you’d probably think was a total idiot compared to us, but in this for-instance sure knows a lot more than we do, for she would indeed recognize the movements of the figurines as a most accursed dance, indeed!

Thence one, thence another, and thenst them all began a low, balmy moaning, and it was some way scary crap. (Don’t worry–there will be more sexy later!) Then every scuzzy bandaged body looked up at Emily’s forsaken town, and that most heinous juggernaut of olden slow folk began to march…

Emily’s jaw literally dropped to the floor when she opened up her closet. For while she was expecting to see all of the stupid lame clothes that she always saw, and that she’d continue to be a LOSER her entire life because her parents would never let her wear anything even half-sexy, that’s not what she saw at all.

And this part is so cool: every awesome dress and skirt and top and shoes and EVERYTHING that she’d ever seen at the mall and thought “wow, I might not be such a DOG if I could wear that, except my stupid mom won’t let me” was in her closet now! Emily looked over her shoulders, expecting perhaps a pair of…blue eyes? But no; Nightfin’s machinations were way more subtle, and she laughed at the little girl that she no longer was for thinking he was anything other than the good sneaky.

Emily tried on, like, EVERY outfit in the closet, and each one was more awesome than the next. Smudges purred his approval, because he loved clothes that didn’t suck, too.

“Oh, Smudges!” sighed Emily, who had finally picked the most vapidly tasty outfit of the bunch. “I just hope that I can be as blasé tonight as these sweet threads are.”

Then the door knocked, and it was Emily’s mom, and Emily was all like “oh, no!” inside because she was soooo nervous now that it was actually really time to go, and Nightfin’s tongue, and she thought for sure she’d drop a deuce in her hammock, but she didn’t.

“That little sweetie-kins Charlie Bannister is here, honey,” said Emily’s mom (who Nightfin so totally didn’t care about, in the least.)

“Tell him I’m dead or something!” said panic-bundled Emily.

“Okay, but he brought you a present,” said dum-dum mom. “I’ll just tell him you don’t want it.”

Oh, gawd! What should she do? Some nascent pebble that was her youthful innocence knew that if she stepped out that door, the one right there, in front of her, in her room, that there was no turning back. Not never EVER. And Emily’s mind raced like fast things, and she thought about stuff, like being alone with sexy eyes, and walking on beaches and babies and stuff and OH GAWD!

Maybe she could just take his stupid present and then run back to her room and cry and die and never come out again and live there with Smudges and eat nothing but dust until she was DEAD!

But then again, no, she thought. That’s just the silly little girl of yesterweek peep-peeping up with her stupid blah-blah voice because she knows nothing of the world. But now she knew the boundless debts that are the vastest reaches of the biggest things, that she saw in a duality of star-cussed eyes.

Now her brave was a real one–that of a WOMAN–and she adjusted her thong before sweeping through the door, past vampyre-charmed mom, to meet her density.

Nightfin-Charlie’s heads literally exploded when he saw how awesome Emily looked (because she did look totally tight, even if she never ever believed she could. But she can–she so TOTALLY can!) He was all like “buh-buh-buh”, and Emily wanted to hug him because he was so stupid, but she didn’t, though he was entirely dumb-sexy. For Emily wielded more empower than before, and had awesome clothes.

“Shall we traipse, Charlie?” said Emily, who looked and felt every bit the sophist.

“Erm, uh, duhhhhh,” said Nightfin, as if he’d been hit by a hockey bat. Then he got his act together, bode Emily’s mother good night, and out the door they went. Sexy.

Others were also slumping out into the night, and they too were sexy–NOT! They were smelly and raggy (or were they, really???), and they were mysterious and don’t you want to know who they are?

Together they stumbled up towards town–Emily’s town, where Emily rode in a blasé fast car with a sexy driver indeed towards destinations unbeknownst–with one extra-big one leading them ever onward. And though the head stumbler looked (for now, but maybe not later?) like some kind of thing that gets buried (perhaps by an ancient civilization, under a geometric shape whose volume can be calculated by multiplying the area of its base by its height by 1/3), you could tell he had something going on. Like he was a leader or something.

A leader of…teams???

???????

By the time they got to the old roller rink, Emily no longer felt so hoi polloi. It was like some kind of magnet was sucking the awesome out of her the closer they got. She wanted to barf, but she didn’t want to despoil her tasty threads, so she didn’t. but just barely.

“Okay, we’re totally here,” said Nightfin, who was by now every bit not Charlie Bannister. Even his ears glistened with some kind of static power.

“Totally,” said Emily, who wished she could just punch herself in the stupid face and DIE.

“Don’t worry. You don’t look stupid or dorky or anything,” said Nightfin. “And I shall sully the face of him or her who sayeth otherwise.” Suddenly Emily felt pretty alright again, and it was easier for her to keep her biscuits in the pan.

They walked up to the old roller rink, which hadn’t been open in forever, like at least three years, and it had cobwebs all over it. Emily wanted to ask Nightfin if they were in the right place, but she knew she’d sound like a total dodo if she did. Indeed as the got closer she saw that there was a mysterious symbol over the door that matched the mystical swirly unicorn-thingy that was on Nightfin’s awesome car. Nightfin winked teally at her, for he knew that her brain was one that figured things out, most of the time, and he thought that was pretty okay.

“Are you ready?” said Nightfin, whose eyes were like deep, misty gorges, possibly with a waterfall powering their power, like a hydroelectric plant put up by some previous regime so many aeons ago, mysterious and unknown. Emily knew that she could not make her timponous lips breathe out blasé words, so she just nodded.

The doors parted afore them, all by themselves, and there was totally no one behind them pulling them, and they weren’t hooked up to electricity or wifi or anything, and Emily knew therefore that it was vampyre maygyc. Inside was another set of doors that Emily remembered from when she was a stupid little girl that had old posters on it, and those doors too opened up, all by themselves. But then there was ANOTHER door that she DID NOT recognize, for it was new. It was some kind of maygyc metal that she’d never seen, whose color defied description, except that they were silver. And they had jewels in them that were definitely red. And some blue. And super-diamonds.

“Take this,” said Nightfin, who took a gem off the door and handed it to her. It was very impressive, indeed, and she asked him a billion questions with her questing eyes, and Nightfin answered back with a trillion answers, none of which made sense. So she put it in her pocket.

They stood there at the doors, just saying nothing (which was totally great, because she and Nightfin could laser across the universe like two spaceships just by breathing together near each other), and then Emily realized it was some kind of test. She looked at Nightfin and he nodded, because he knew that she knew what he knew that he wanted her to do. Which she HAD to do. Now.

“Um…” said Emily, not because she was dumb, but because she was thinking with her soul-well. She knew that if she said the wrong words, she’d leave false illusions behind, and that forever would she be barred from whatever it was on the other side of the door.

Emily plumped her depths, and in hazy craze saw dancing visages. For a second she freaked out, because the images came so fast that it was like being in the middle of a food fight that you did not start but got into trouble for anyway, because your stupid friends were SO immature, and yes, maybe, you threw a carrot stick. But only one, and you didn’t hit anyone, and it was sort of dried out and not even homeless people would have eaten it so, like, whatever.

Anyways, out of the miasmas rode a steedy unicorn, and it ducked its head down, and Emily patted it on the neck, and it whispered something in her ear…

“Oopus Doorus!” she shouted! And verily the door opened! Nightfin gave her a high five, and they stepped through a flavorful mist…

The moaning trompers tromped along through the town. Because I didn’t forget about them. It’s just taking them awhile to get to the roller rink.

Emily literally had a cow when she saw that the inside of the roller rink was totally not a roller rink at all. It was sort of like a really cool bar, with couches and pillows everywhere, and kind of dark but not in a scary way but YES sexy, and there was a bunch of people there. Or, to be more fastidious with one’s lexicon, there were VAMPYRES there.

“Hey,” said Nightfin as they walked in, all blaséxy. Some of the vampyres said “hey” back, others didn’t, and other did other things. Emily recognized a few of them–Sexxica was talking to Trudude, who was behind the bar, and the exotic girl and diverse boy were there, too. Plus there were some others, and probably a couple of black vampyres, and a smart looknig vampyre girl with short hair who was probably a feminist or something.

“Well if it isn’t little miss farty fart-fart,” said Sexxica, who was looking especially slutty. But Emily knew her whiles, and was ready for her.

“If you smelt it, you must have dealt,” said Emily, and all of vampyres went all like “oooooohhhhh!” You could tell Sexxica thought she’d make Emily cry, but she wasn’t even close.

“Well, you’re a big stinky pickle with stupid sauce, covered in stink-cheese, and smelly because you were in someone’s butt!” reported Sexxica, triumphy. By now all of the vampyres had gathered around to witness the battle of whits, and they listened intense as a sexy bunch. All eyes were on Emily, and the room was so quiet that not a single pin could drop.

“It takes one to know one!” reported Emily, and all the vampyres laughed and pointed at Sexxica, who had, in effect, had her own insult harnessed against her. Nightfin smiled and winked at Emily, and she was so happy that she thought her heart would give birth to kittens. But when she how angry Sexxica now looked, she realized she may have pushed back a little too hard.

The whole room hushed together, and Sexxica walked up to Emily like she was the queen of something important, and she smiled the smile of someone whose cruelty knew no bounce.

“I like you, Emily Blah-blah-blah,” said Sexxica, and some of the meaner looking vampyres laughed, because she’d just made fun of her name. “So I almost don’t want to tell you this…”

“No, Sexxica–don’t!” said Trudude, who looked somewhat impaled himself. Slutty, mean Sexxica ignored him and turned her whore self back to Emily.

“I…had…the…” started Sexxica, with sly.

“No, Sexxica!” yelled Trudude.

“..tongue…of…your…”

“Sexxica, no!” shouted Trudude.

“…beloved…guy…who…is…over…there…”

“Stop, Sexxica!” wailed Trudude.

“…Nightfin…Daggarheart…”

“Sexxica, you must desist!” howled Trudude.

“…in…”

“Estop your procedure!” vociferated Trudude.

“…my…”

“For the love of Moonglow Daggarherat, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOO!” claxoned Trudude.

“…mouth!” said Sexxica.

The whole room faltered to silence, and you could totally tell that Sexxica instantly regretted opening her stupid mouth, and that everyone knew now that she was a TOTAL slut, for sure. Emily looked over at Nightfin, but his ever-tumbling eyes were now, like school in the summertime, closed to her.

“Is it true?” she asked of him, but in the center part of the core of her heart, she knew it was a verity.

“I…um…she…we…you…them…” began Nightfin, by way of explanation. Emily tried to lasso his two see-orbs, but they were just as good at being elusive as they were at being sexy.

For a moment Emily wanted to cry, but then she didn’t for some reason, and it was cool. I don’t know. She just dealt or something.

Before anyone could say anything important, one of the less-sexy vampyres ran up to the shell shocked group in a manner that would certainly indicate that he had a very important announcement, possibly having something to do with something else that has happened that, up to this point, you were not certain what it had to do with this story.

“Stop the presses!” shouted the demi-sexy vampyre.

“Here come the mummies!”

END OF PART 5

CONFINUE TO PART 6

EMILY AND THE SEXY VAMPYRE – HOME

by N.K.L. Storm

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs, administered by Paul and Storm]

[editor’s note: this installment was found in the editor’s mailbox, along with a yellow Starburst wrapper and a note which read “Dear old guy: I guess it’s okay and stuff if you want to continue subscribing my story up on the internet , if you want. But if my mom finds out I’ll be so completely busted that it’s not even funny.  k? – ‘Emily’ p.s. my name isn’t really Emily, but it would be, like, WAY creepy if you knew my real name and stuff. Not that I think your creepy or anything. It’s just, you know, whatever.”]

School was a dour visage the next day for poor, poor Emily. Even more than the usual blandishment that was her horrid school days, on this day her spirit wanted to crawl into her locker drear and DIE FOR GOOD. For there was entirely no way that her young tender heart could gaze a future where hope was something anything other than, irrevocably, gone.

“Did your stupid old weird boyfriend break up with you or something?” said stupid Ashley.

“Yeah, I bet he was all like ‘ooh, I’m gonna put my tongue in your mouth!’, and you were like ‘no way!’, and he was all like ‘bla-la-la-la!’ with his tongue and you RAN!” said lame Jessica, who knew nothing of tongues or love.

But Emily’s soul was now, like, waaay too complex to get all cranked up by her so-called friend’s missive’s. She didn’t even bother to tell them “whatever.” She just sat there, not eating, and not hungry. Nor thirsty. For she was herself a great ocean, but without blue, blue water. And no amount of water, blue or no, could refill her waters, except for very special waters indeed. And those waters had now flowed, far away, into a different mystical sea from whence they came. Or something.

On this day not even Mrs. Hately could yank her chain. Emily didn’t even know what that particular hag was even saying the WHOLE time, and she probably got an F for the day, but wasn’t sure, because that’s how much she didn’t care. AT ALL.

All the way home little springs of hope sprigged up along her path, only to be squashed away like butterflys that had been trapped, taken out of the cruel net, thrown wickedly to the ground, and trod upon, harshly. There was this guy washing his car, and for a sec Emily thought it was HIM…but it wasn’t. It was just some dude. Then she saw two other dudes, but they were also just dudes. And she thought FOR SURE that when she walked by the Softy-Cold she’d at least see Trudude, and there WAS a dude there, but, lamentably and irrevocably, it was also but a mere dude.

By the time she got home Emily couldn’t decide if she wanted to cry or die, so she decided she’d climb up onto the roof to figure it out.

“Alas, it is very high up here,” she lamented, for verily her ugly self had pitted herself against a very perilous situation. Indeed, the wuthering heights fled from her mind thoughts of decimating herself, for she realized she couldn’t bring herself to make that most penultimate of sacrifices.

“AAAAHHHHHH!” she yelled, because she fell off the roof for some reason.

And in her whirly mind’s eye a billion thoughts screeched like popping balloons in her ears, each one a memory vivid and so, so spry. She remembered special things, like blue eyes, birthdays, and pretty views. But only one view mortally mattered now, and it was all that she had, and it was the ground.

A boy is walking along, and he is not expecting that anything odd is happening at all. He’s just like “hum dee dum!” as he ambles. And he’s cute, but you don’t have to know that yet. And he’s walking down Emily’s block. And he’s kind of, I dunno, a jock or something, which is TOTALLY (suspiciously??) different from Nightfin. And he’s near Emily’s house going all “Ho-dee-do-do!” and thinking about sports or something, or maybe cars, or shooting a BB gun at cans, or pyramids (foreshadowing!)

What he is NOT thinking about is a stupid, ugly girl falling off of her roof for some reason, and yet it is happening in front of him. It is a shame, because maybe if he was paying attention he might perhaps catch her, and save her life, for which she would probably be quite grateful or petulant. But no, he is probably too busy picturing himself hitting a grand slam in the Super Bowl for him to realize it as the girl falls, falls, falls, falls, falls, falls…

Emily found herself not splatted on the ground at all, but indeed in the arms of a hunky dude who was cute.

“Oh, my!” she sighed, wondering if she would swoon to the point of fainting, and she put her hand up to her forehead. “I thought I was a total goner.”

“You’re no goner,” said the hunky dude, who had blond hair and looked to Emily like the captain of teams. “The only goner is my heart.”

Emily’s own heart pittered and pattered, and she was glad that she hadn’t eaten since last night. This boy…this man…this dude…had saved her life!

But googly goblins began chasing around the jasmine in her mind, scolding her ever so meanly! What of Nightfin? Didst you not love him? Are you so easily plucked? Are you to fall in love every time you fall off a roof?

“I…I don’t know what to say,” said Emily, who wanted to stay safe in her new dude-cradle forever and ever, though she knew she musn’t!

“I’m sorry,” said the guy. “I can be a dumb blockhead sometimes, though my heart is stout. I don’t even know your name.”

“Emily,” said Emily. “I guess I should thank you, um…”

“Billy. Billy Tutt,” said Billy Tutt. “But you can just call me Tutt.”

“Well, thank you, Tutt,” said Emily, who only then realized that she pretty much had a complete wedgie. “You can set me down now.”

But before Tutt could even begin to move his big arms, a voice called out clear and forthright.

“Unhand her this instant!” shouted an entirely familiar voice–a voice with the power of odd places and sexy, gothic miasma. Nightfin’s voice. “Or you shall face forces twixt which shall unrender you!”

“I will release her,” said Tutt, who was blasé in his own way. “But only because it was her wish, which it is a sweet yet sorrowful pleasure to obey.” And he didst release Emily to the ground.

For a very long time sexy Nightfin and hunky Tutt stared at each other, and Emily thought for sure that the deal would go down. And she looked at one, then the other, then both, and her heart did even more battle than the two of them might have been doing, if their eyes had swords or guns. And Emily knew that only she could sway them and keep them from kicking each other in the junk.

“Boys, no! Stop! Nay!” shouted Emily, standing between them and waving her arms or something. “Don’t fight over me! I’m just some stupid girl!”

Both Nightfin and Tutt looked like they’d just been slapped, or dunked in milk.

“Emily Smithingtonson,” said Nightfin. Sexy. “In many ages have I seen many stupid things. And my heart has felt stupid things. And my eyes have seen stupid things. And stupid things have brushed up against these garments I wear.” And Nightfin’s clothes were wafted by an unborne breeze. “So when I say you are no stupid girl, you can–no, MUST–believe it.”

Nightfin’s clothing was all flapping around with magic, and he was like a dark, brooding peacock strutting on the edge of a knife, standing still.

Tutt looked unnerved, and he too spoke.

“Well, um…Emily…I think I’ve seen old things–no, wait!” he said. “What I mean is if I’m stupid, then you’re stupid. Shoot! That didn’t come out right. Dang!”

And Tutt ran away.

Nightfin gazed down at Emily, who maybe kind of thought she might not be entirely stupid after all. Maybe. And Emily looked past her shame in order to look back into Nighfin’s salvation eyes, which once more were hers to jump into, like a stupid younger brother might jump into a ball pit. After perhaps a mental fortnight, Nightfin spoke words from his mouth, though they’d already written together an entire trilogy, plus an extra book, with their collected eyes.

“Go put on some blasé clothes, Emily Smithingtonson, and meet me at the old roller rink after you have dinner,” he said.

Oh, no! thought Emily. My clothes are all completely LAME!

She had to tell him that she didn’t have anything that didn’t make her look like a total DOG, and she looked up at Nightfin to tell him, but she didn’t really, because he wasn’t there anymore.

Emily walked into her house only to find her dorky younger brother, who we’re meeting right now.

“I’m telling! I’m telling!” said the little twerp, who everyone knew was a total accident, but who always got whatever he wanted anyway, because he was annoying and whiny and STUPID.

“Shut up, Randy!” said Emily, who was just not in the mood. “And so what? Mom and dad won’t care. They never care about ANYTHING. And so what if boys like me?”

“Boys don’t like you! You’re ugly and stupid!” said Randy, who stuck out his tongue and ate a candy bar.

“I am not!” said Emily, for the first time in her life. I mean, it was the first time she’d ever not agreed that she was ugly and stupid. “As a matter of fact, TWO boys like me. So you can go ahead and tell.”

“Well, I’m also going to tell that one of them’s a vampyre,” said Randy as he shoved another candy bar into his stupid face. Emily felt like she was tumbling down from the roof again, but it was only a roof in her mind.

“How did you know?” asked Emily.

Randy shrugged. “Kids can see vampyres. Duh! Now if you don’t buy me a cool video game for my stupid Nintendo thingy, I’m telling.”

“Fine,” said Emily, who really didn’t need this grief. And she made her brother swear on his retarded Pokemon collection, and he didn’t tell on her at dinner, which was lucky for him, because she would have KILLED him.

So her mom said it was fine to go out, because it was with charmy-charming Charlie Bannister, who she loved, which is totally too bad for her because vampyres DO NOT like moms.

And as Emily walked to her room, her countenance furrowed deep. For her heart’s head was now in a guillotine, and the executioner was her closet and all of its stupid, dorky clothes…

END OF PART 4

CONFINUE TO PART 5

EMILY AND THE SEXY VAMPYRE – HOME