Better off Red – Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Thurston Redding greeted the day with the same routine each morning. He woke up, showered, shaved, plucked his eyebrows, counted each individual strand of hair as he combed it. If there was anything Redding respected, it was ritual. He never thought about it, never had a voice in his head telling him when to move on to the next step and how long to do it. It was all instinctual. He wasn’t even sure if he quite believed in instinct, but that was what it was. Today, all he could think about was the basement.

There was a girl down there.

It sounded perverted to think about, a girl chained up in his basement. He wasn’t insane. Of course he could see that. But he didn’t have any plans for her like that. Those urges had been strangled until their eyes bulged and buried deep under the foundations of his heart, many years ago. He didn’t even think of her as a girl at all. She wasn’t quite human. So many people rarely were these days. This thing, this Lysette, she was like a bird with an injured wing. She had lost her path, bloody and helpless in his yard, but he had picked her up and promised to mend her. It was a heroic thing he was doing here. Eventually, he was sure she would fly again.

His wife and children didn’t know. They suspected, of course, but what exactly they suspected was something he could not even imagine. Redding didn’t want to keep this from them. No, that was the furthest thing from his intent. If anything, he hoped that they could use this to bring them closer together as a family. Each of them were honest, each of them obeyed the Lord, yet they had grown so distant these last couple years. Especially his daughter. He wasn’t quite sure how to fix it. Redding had a way with words, it was what led him to the church in the first place—the language of it. It was all music to him. Yet his priestly speeches did nothing for the people he shared his life with.

So he had prayed. Prayed for the Lord to give him a sign, something that would help him to repair the rift in his own home. And here it was. The savior of his family; a thing named Lysette. He would not hide her from his family. He would show her off, embrace her. His rehabilitation of her would remind them what a good man he was and had always been, deep down at his core. This had nothing to do with angels or demons, not to him at least. He didn’t care where vampires came from, what spawned them forth or what dark bidding they were intent to do. It didn’t matter. This vampire, this one in his own home, this was a family project. An activity they could all work on together, applying their own strengths. It was just like building a birdhouse or a bookshelf. Nothing more.