Young Writers Society

Dexter:
My mouth foamed with white saliva, the liquid slowly trickling down my jaw. I was so thirsty even my normal blood intakes couldn’t quench my thirst. There has never been enough blood to relinquish the fire of my parched throat since I fed from that wild dog. How he gnashed and bit, his body squirming as I sank my fangs into his mangled fur. It was almost as difficult as stealing Caroline’s heart. Thinking of the feral dog made me have a sudden desire to visit her tonight, after the sun had gone into hibernation and its weaker counterpart could not restrain me from my dark desires.

Caroline lived in a small apartment complex, one where I had to climb up over two stories to reach her patio. She was as difficult to visit as she was to please. She was a riddle I could not solve unlike my other more frequent lovers.

I stood on her patio, staring at the multiple cacti she nourished, each resting in their small ceramic pots. Then I tapped on her glass doors.
“Carooliiinnnnnnneeee,” I howled. I sounded like a drunken human man. I wiped my mouth to keep my foamy saliva hidden. After a few minutes she appeared, her arms crossed as she joined me in the moonlight.

“What the hell, Dexter?” she glared. “Are you drunk?”

“Drunk on my love for you,” I smirked, while trying hard to keep my saliva in my mouth. “I just can’t stay away from you,” I lied. “I love you so much. I need you.”

At this point, she pulled her jacket tighter. “You seemed to have been able to stay away from me quite well for the past few weeks.”

“Because I was afraid to tell you how much I need you,” I lied.

She stared at me skeptically, her lips forming a subtle pout. “Well, I’m better off without you.” And, she turned around, retreating to her home. I couldn’t let her leave. I was so thirsty, and truth to be told, her words had stung and I was more than eager to prove her wrong, and so I grabbed her little arm.

“Well, I’m not,” and I pressed my lips against her face and behind her ear. I could feel her heart beating increasingly rapidly. “I didn’t mean what I said,” she whispered, “I just missed you, missed you and your secrets.” I didn’t reply, just covered her with kisses and when I reached her neck, I began to make small bites, sinking my fangs in here and there. She giggled when I did, “Stop it. You’re tickling me.” But I didn’t stop until the fire in my throat had stopped burning. It was so hard to get my hands on human blood these days.
She stared at me straight in my eyes, “Let’s stop hiding, Dex. Come into the sunlight with me.”

“Or steal with me into the night,” I smiled, then I’d have a really great meal.

“I need someone who’s committed to me.”

“You need someone who pays attention to you, and so far, I’m the only one.”
Her face turned bright red as my words sunk in, and she slapped me across the face. “That’s not true.” Tears threatened to fall from her widened, blue eyes. “Get the fuck out, and don’t even think about coming back, because if you do, I’ll stab a stake through your heart!”

“You don’t mean that, lovey,” I said, running my fingers against her back. She calmed a little, but not by much.

Finally, she sighed. “You’re not what I’m looking for. I’m tired of your crap, Dex. It was fun when it lasted, but I think you best just leave now.”

“Would it make you feel better if I turned you?”

“So I’d melt in sunlight? Um, no thank you.”

I sighed, and sulked as I left her apartment, climbing over the patio’s railing. What dumb luck! Now, I’d have to find another pulsing blood bank.

Caroline:
It felt strange knowing that Dex would never come again. There would be no more surprises. Funny how things had changed so quickly, but it was for the better. There would be no more waiting or worrying. I could get a real boyfriend now, one that I could proudly show off to my friends without feeling guilty about having Dex.

I touched the little holes he had left on my skin as I got ready for work the next day. No more lies to Brandon about why I can’t seem to stay awake some days at the cash register. Everything was fine for a few days until I awoke from a nightmare. One where a hooded figure danced around me, the tips of his fingers raking across body, tearing my clothing and leaving trails of blood. I stared there transfixed and unable to bolt away. “You can’t run away from my touch, lovey,” the dark character smirked. Tears dropped from my eyes, and then he let his hood drop. “Hello,” said Dexter. I awoke with my head burning. I decided to move that day, and began packing my boxes after I took a Motrin, but I never left.

The pain came a few days later, my body hurt so much as if a million hot pockets had scorched the surface of my skin. I gasped in horror. Perhaps, perhaps Dexter had performed the ritual on me. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t dare, but oh that would be something he’d do, and I screamed in anger. “Fuck you, Dexter!” I made a note to myself that if I did indeed turn, I’d shove a stake down his heart personally or even better yet, chain him to a bike rack and watch him writhe in pain as the sun destroyed his very essence.

As the days dragged on, I couldn’t help but be excited with the various schemes I’d concocted to kill my former lover. I was so giddy with my plans for murder until I fell into a state of depression. Why? Why did this have to happen to me? How could I be so stupid to believe that loving a paranormal creature was even possible? Was Dexter even real? Or was he just a figment of my imagination? My life was over because I’d believed the lies of a stranger in the dark.

I started seeing Dexter everywhere; he was the china vase we’d stolen from the restaurant we met for the first time, the blanket lying on my bed, the cactus on my patio. “Or steal with me into the night,” his voice echoed. The visions were so bad that I stopped going to work. I threw the vase onto the ground from the patio, I tore the blanket into shreds and kicked the cactus on my patio, only to find myself yelping in pain afterwards.

Water could no longer quench my thirst, I was weakened, without the strength to chase the multiple Dexters that danced around in my room mocking me and instead, lay on the patio with my mouth foaming waiting for my canines to sprout into two fangs. I stared at the sky’s blue, wishing for it to rain, so that perhaps the fire that burned my throat could be put out. That bastard! I couldn’t even visit the physician or I’d be poked and prodded. Besides, it’s not like I had insurance anyways. The worst part was a tiny bit of me missed him. If he was here he’d be able to explain what was happening to me…

Darkness took me over as the sun grilled my flesh, my mouth foaming. There was a loud knocking sound, perhaps my soul fracturing into a million shards. “On the patio,” a man’s voice said. Smooth cool hands touched my body and I was floating, flying into the sky and landing on a soft black cloud that drifted and jerked and squeaked and blared. “Damn. Look at that animal bite on her neck,” a female voice said.

“Rabies…”

I choked on my saliva as I tried to muster out one last curse at Dexter. He’d tainted me with his love and I’d been more than oblidging.

Mmkay.

This was interesting. I'm not going to go into the scientific issues with this, because they're so manifold and blaring that it's clear that you weren't really writing this for its congruity with the restrictions of realism. In other words, this was fantasy.

That said, what I don't really get is why you used the pretense of a rabies infection rather than, say, vampirism, or lycanthropy. When delving into the realm of fantasy, why not explore all of the dimensions? Rabies has far more...tangible connotations. Lycanthropy, for example, is an entirely fantastical condition; rabies has specific real-world symptoms. I don't know why you chose it, over everything else you might have gone with; fictional diseases allow for a far greater territory to explore. And more critical readers won't be prompted to say, "What? That's not what happens in rabies."

Also, what's with the whole spreading thing and the murky incongruity surrounding it? Dexter, as I remember, threatened Caroline with something like "I'll turn you," which I assume means that he'll turn her into the same rabies-mangled brute that he is. What, then, is with the concluding scene? Caroline's whole demeanor bespeaks imminent death. "Last curse?" "Darkness took me over?" Surely I am justified in my inference?

Moving on. I find it a bit bizarre that Caroline would actually fraternize with such an obviously dangerous entity. And there is no sparkling personality, no gentle countenance to legitimize her choice of friendship. She knows what he is, she knows that he's not entirely sane, and she also knows that he has something of an unnatural desire for her that, I think, cannot be completely explained by his excuse of love. Either her deduction skills are at level zero, or...I don't even know.

She demonstrates further inexperience in deduction when she fails tof figure out that

teeth marks on neck = uh oh

(While I'm on the subject of biting necks, it seems like you could have gone for something a bit less cliché. Rabies being something of an unexplored literary subject, you have all the freedom in the world (past the aforementioned realistic limitations, which you're ignoring anyway.). And the stakes? Come on.)

You need far more emotion on her part in regards to the transformation. It sounds rushed.

That's it, I guess. Hope this helped.

-Kafka

Hello there! Rose from Review Team Yellow here to review!

Overall, this was a good story. Twilight sort of ruined the whole vampire/werewolf thing for me (If you're a fan, don't think I'm trying to criticize you; it's just my own personal opinion. ), but this was interesting. I definitely liked some parts of it more than others, and I'll tell you why.

In short stories, it can be difficult to create characters that are, shall I say, as deep as characters in novels. Frankly, in novels you have much more space to write about your characters, and therefore they often end up being much more developed than those found in short stories. Notice that I said difficult, not impossible. You managed to create one character that was convincing (Dexter), but your other character (Caroline) wasn't nearly as believable.

When it comes to Dex, I found myself having feelings for him. Not that I loved him (I'm not really sure what it was), but I felt for him. I believed in the way you wrote about his emotions and his actions and how you portrayed his underlying sense of darkness without going too heavy on the details. He's a wonderful, interesting character.

As much as I liked Dex, that's how much I was indifferent about Caroline. I found myself longing for some emotions from her, for a little bit of depth or quirkiness or something that I could sink my teeth in to (please pardon my pun, ). If I were you, I would look over Caroline's part of this story and edit it so that it's more like Dex's: focused, detailed and concentrated.

All in all, nice work! Always keep writing!

-Rose