Chapter One: A Girl to Die For
When Sam Spinnel locked eyes with her, the relentless ache of need filled him. Through the thin haze of hash and cigarette smoke he could see her at the other end of the crowded basement. She looked at him over the rim of her red plastic cup. Long black hair framed her delicate face and her body was a collection of perfectly proportioned curves. A drunken grin spread across Sam’s face as he worked his way quickly through the partygoers towards his prospective conquest.
Along with his other brothers in the Phi Alpha Gamma, Sam came to the neighboring house’s basement party with two priorities in mind. The first was already accomplished having finished his ninth Coors Light. He intended to complete the second as he closed in on his quarry. She was some sorority chick hoping to get laid by the looks of the tube top and skirt she wore. All of which left little to Sam’s limited imagination.
“Hello handsome,” she said in dusky voice. The girl slid over and patted the space next to her on the last steps of the staircase leading out of the basement.
“What’s goin’ on gorgeous?” Sam drawled.
He fought against his deteriorating motor skills to make as graceful an approach as possible. He sat down beside her. They were pressed close together having to share the narrow step. She wore a fragrance that filled his nostrils with a sweet aroma. He stopped himself short of sniffing her like some sort of animal and looked back into the crowd. Sam struggled to come up with something to say, and then realized he hadn’t even given his name yet.
“My name is Sam,” he said, extending a sweaty hand.
“Glory,” she replied taking his hand, “It’s nice to meet you Sam; you look like you’re having yourself a good time.”
“I’m having a better time now that I’m talking with you,” the frat boy slurred. He was proud of himself for saying something so smooth off the cuff and told himself to remember that line.
Glory’s full lips blossomed into a smile as she placed her hand atop Sam’s knee, “I’m sure the night will only get better for me, too.”
She gave him a wink and took another sip of her drink as she rubbed his knee softly with her other hand.
Sam was wordless with surprise and a growing lust. He spent most of his free time lifting weights with his fraternity brothers for the sole purpose of picking up women. But Sam never hoped to snag a girl like this in a basement party. The frat boy was very pleased with himself and looked out to the crowd to flag down his friends.
The crowd was gathered in loose pockets around a long table, which was being used for a game of flip cup. Sam tried to focus on the faces of the partygoers but found his sight blurred. The loud cheering and music that filled the room made him dizzy. He was increasingly impatient with trying to find his friends, wanted his eyes filled only with the image of Glory. After futilely scanning the room one more time, he returned his gaze to her. She stared at him with amorous eyes.
Screw the guys, Sam thought as he wrapped an arm around Glory’s shoulders,
“Hey, would you like to head out of here for a while?”
“What do you have in mind, Sam?” she asked. Her eyebrow arched suspiciously at him.
“Well, I -- we could go for a walk. You know…it’s a nice night and I just like to hang out with you. Here is good. I mean if you want -- it’s totally up to you,” he stuttered out. He was frantic in his effort not to scare her away.
Glory only threw back her head and laughed. She slid her hand up the inside of his thigh and said, “Of course I’d like to go for a walk with you handsome.”
Elation filled Sam as he led the way up the steps. His balance was beginning to betray him, but he forced himself steady with victory so close at hand. A plan was already made up in his alcohol sodden mind by the time he reached the top of the steps.
They would incidentally make their way towards his frat house. On the way there he would state how tired he was and ask if she wanted to watch a movie. With a little privacy, it wouldn’t take too long to liberate her breasts from the elastic prison of that tube top. The plan had worked before. Sam saw no reason why it wouldn’t now.
They began to make their way up Whitney Street, which ran north of Saint Joseph’s College. The student apartments that lined the street weren’t much to look at. They were worse looking on any given weekend with lawn chairs, dirty paper plates, and crushed plastic cups littering their shabby porches. Music drifted out of the houses. Students lounged on the rails and steps of the porches they passed.
Sam continued to slur as he asked Glory questions about what classes she took at the college and if she was in a sorority. She didn’t seem to notice though. Said had not declared her major yet. She found theology interesting, though. Glory wasn’t in a sorority, but she loved going to parties to meet new people.
“What about you? What are you aspiring to become Sam?” she asked.
Hopefully not a college dropout, Sam thought to himself. He realized it might not sound too impressive if he mentioned the fact he was on academic probation, “Business, I’m studying business.”
“You’re going to get out there and make some money, huh Sam?” she asked teasingly.
Sam’s only reply was to shake his head up and down as he tried to conserve what little energy remained for the climb up the hill. He also needed to respond to any questions Glory asked. For the practical reason of keeping himself steady and establishing some intimacy he reached out for her and they walked hand in hand.
“Let’s go this way,” she said, steering him down a side street that was a short cut to the Phi Alpha Gamma house. Sam was relieved. He was all too aware of the increasing fatigue felt with every step.
The sight of her kept him going. She was just too beautiful to be real. Her long, black hair danced in the breeze. The motion of her thighs mesmerized. Realizing he was close now to his destination Sam decided to make his move.
“So, uh, would you like to crash at my place a while and watch a movie?” he asked.
“I’d love to hang out for a while Sam,” Glory said.
She tugged him close and leaned her head on his shoulder. The act nearly caused the tired Sam to tumble over, but he gained a second wind. He was close to sealing the deal now. The couple entered the nearly deserted Phi Alpha Gamma house and moved by a slumbering frat boy bathed in the light of the T.V. he left on.
Sam was grateful he had a room on the first floor. He opened his door and flipped on the light switch. The clutter of his cloths and unread textbooks were swept off the bed and onto the floor. Glory sat in the cleared space as he fumbled a DVD into the player. Sam flipped the light switch back off as he fell exhausted beside Glory on the bed.
The darkened room flickered with the light of the television screen, but Sam paid the images no mind. Free of all distractions, he let his eyes roam unreservedly over Glory’s body. He pulled her close beside him on the bed. Sam was drunk and taking liberties at this point. Glory didn’t need any prompting and he could feel her small hands work up his tee shirt. She pulled it up and off of him. Sam followed suite and snaked his numbed fingers beneath her tube top, the elastic fabric stretched until both his hands cradled her warm breasts.
Inside he knew something was wrong, but even then he could not stop. Sam could not bear to stop holding her. He must not stop. Stubbornly he fought to hang on a bit longer wanting only to accomplish his second priority. God, please let me have enough left in the tank to get hard. Please.
Darkness fell. Strangely they were already undressed and grinding against each other. Her strong thighs held Sam firmly in place as he continued to ram deeper inside her. They rolled around the damp sweaty bed; Glory refused to release her tenacious hold of Sam. He didn’t think he could dislodge her even if he wanted and that was a wonderful thing.
Again and again he lay dead in her arms only to be willed onward by her caresses and kisses. Then gradually a pain began to fill Sam’s chest. He fell onto his back with Glory rolling atop him. The agony spread to his arms and legs, it felt like his veins were being stretched until they were ripped apart.
“Stop,” Sam moaned helplessly.
“Stop? Why would I ever want to do that Sam?” Glory asked. She ran her tongue down the length of Sam’s cheek.
“Please…something’s wrong,” he begged. He turned his head to look at her directly and knew just how right he was. Somehow Glory knew. Glory didn’t care.
“Oh Sam, I was hoping to let you just sleep through this, but if you insist… wake up,” she purred in his ear.
When Sam found he could open his eyes again the exhaustion he felt before returned fourfold. His eyes burned and his throat was horse with dryness. Pain wracked his heart as it pounded within his chest. It was at that point he realized he could not move his arms or legs. Glory lay entangled with him. Sam could feel her leg across his and the bare flesh of her chest pressed against his own.
“Oh, Sam”, she said as she climbed atop him, “You really over did it at the party. All that alcohol you drank in the last few hours and the long walk back to your room… If you bothered to drink some water before you decided to try and bed me you could have just slept through my devouring of your soul. Silly, silly boy.”
She was mounted atop him now. In the dim light of his room he could make her out and what he saw sent tears of horror down his burning cheeks. Dark horns now protruded from the top of Glory’s skull, her eyes were pupil-less and glowed faintly. But what shoved Sam’s already strained mind into madness were her hands. The small soft fingers were replaced with sharp talons. The tips of which scratched his chest as she used them to brace herself upright.
“I was already feeding on you in the basement. I didn’t even need to touch you for that; the aura of lust around you was enough for me at first. I wasted no time in amplifying it. Then it was about establishing physical contact with you. It created a bond of the direst need through touch, so you could think of nothing except the conquest of me. This is never much work given your type,” she laughed, running a taloned finger down the length of Sam’s chest.
“Through touch,” she continued, “I was able to read your mind. Not that there was anything very interesting there, but all I really needed was the knowledge of where you lived. The convenient short cut doesn’t seem so convenient now, huh, handsome.”
Sam could only respond by moaning weakly and shedding what tears his dehydrated tear ducts would allow.
“You were so desperate to have me; you couldn’t even understand your body was already shutting down. I also sipped at your soul the entire walk back to your room. You passed out half way in removing my top,” she said, shaking her ample breasts over Sam’s face.
“You were so good to me Sam, lying perfectly still as I wrapped myself about you and drained your very essence. Dying in your sleep is so much easier. I cannot feed on you mercifully if you are awake, but I think my job is done here. I’m sure you won’t be leaving this bed. At least not alive anyway,” Glory finished.
Somewhere in Sam’s mind it occurred for him to scream. He wanted to, but he couldn’t force the sound out. He watched helplessly as Glory climbed off him. He thought he could see some sort of wings behind her, but the room was so dark and his eyes were failing him.
“Where is that tube top Sam,” she asked rhetorically, as she scanned the room one more time before heading to his dresser.
After flinging a few of his shirts to the floor, she pulled out a large Saint Joseph t-shirt and laid it over the top of the dresser. Then it seemed that she shimmered or the air around her grew foggy. She looked normal again! Gone were the horns and talon hands. The wings were gone as well. She put on the large tee shirt and took a moment to examine herself, letting out a small giggle at how she looked.
She sauntered back over to Sam, bent down and grabbed a fist full of his hair. Glory kissed him hard on the mouth, “Sam you were wonderful. It’s a shame we could only do this once. I really hate leaving you like this, but I can’t have too many people seeing me. Don’t want to be raising any suspicion. You know?”
Sam tried to say something, anything. She looked human now. Maybe he could appeal to her, maybe he could bribe her -- beg her to spare him. Tears of a growing sense of mortality and desperation spilled from his eyes. The creature he thought was a girl named Glory wiped them away.
“Goodnight Sam,” she said, as she stood up. She walked over to the DVD player and turned it off, then left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
In the pitch blackness of the room Sam Spinnel knew he was dying. He was terrified of the creature coming back to finish him off, but something told him it wouldn’t. He didn’t want to die. Not like this. Of all the women in his life, the only one he could think of now was his mother and how badly he wanted to be home.
“Home,” he rasped as the overstrained chambers of his heart collapsed.
