Keira is sitting on the bed in her
                                   childhood bedroom. She is elegantly
                                   dressed with a black suit laid out on
                                   the bed beside her.

                                   Keira is fingering a bowling trophy
                                   while looking around the room.

                                   Adrian enters reading a newspaper. He
                                   is dressed in black.

                                   ADRIAN
            Baby, you're not ready to go.
                          (teasing)
            The funeral starts in an hour.

                                   Adrian sits down in a chair.

                                   KEIRA
            You know how every movie about Paris uses the Eiffel Tower as
            a landmark.

                                   ADRIAN
                          (not looking up from paper)
            Yeah, sure. For London they use Big Ben.

                                   KEIRA
            Too bad that Big Ben is a bell and not a clock tower.

                                   ADRIAN
            I know, I know, unwashed ignorant Americans. And to think all
            this time you came from here.

                                   Keira ignores Adrian.

                                   KEIRA
            This room is my clock tower, my Eiffel Tower, my Golden Gate
            Bridge, my Sydney opera house, my Empire State--

                                   ADRIAN
            Okay, I get it.

                                   KEIRA
                          (looking around)
            This is where it all happened...

                                   Keira looks down at the bowling trophy
                                   and sets it to rest on the pillows with
                                   a caress.

                                   KEIRA
            The epicenter of my grief.

                                   Adrian pulls the paper down to look at
                                   Keira.

                                   ADRIAN
            Oh for God's sake! This isn't a Tennessee Williams play. Who
            is that woman in the kitchen?

                                   KEIRA
            Beulah's a neighbor.

                                   ADRIAN
            Does she always cook for you?

                                   KEIRA
            Welcome to Backwater, Mississippi home of voodoo, swamp
            water, and alligator wrestling. Don't you know all of life's
            grief is solved by Southern cooking. A tub of lard can cure
            all that's ailing you.

                                   The more Keira talks the more her
                                   southern drawl comes out.

                                   BEULAH
                          (from offstage)
            Mizz Keira.

                                   Beulah enters with a pitcher and
                                   glasses.

                                   Adrian goes back to reading the
                                   newspaper.

                                   BEULAH
            Ya'll want some lemonade before the funeral?

                                   KEIRA
            There any vodka in it?

                                   BEULAH
            No, ma'am. Demon liquor doesn't solve a damn thing. Your Papi
            should have taught you that.

                                   KEIRA
            I like to think I might be able to succeed where Papi failed.

                                   BEULAH
                          (shaking her head)
            Mmmm... There's some pumpkin cornbread in da oven, ifin'
            ya'lls get hungry.

                                   Beulah fiddles with Keira's suit, pots
                                   the trophy and picks it up.

                                   BEULAH
            Your Papi was so proud that night he won this. Remember?

                                   Keira takes the trophy from her.

                                   KEIRA
                          (angrily)
            How could I forget?

                                   Keira holds the trophy like weapon.

                                   KEIRA
            That was the night he... That was the night he... broke the
            league record.

                                   BEULAH
            You must be real torn up. I'll leave you two alone.

                                   Beulah motions to hug Keira, rethinks
                                   it, and exits.

                                   Keira sets the trophy back on the bed.

                                   Keira begins to strip down to her slip.

                                   Adrian lowers his paper to watch.

                                   ADRIAN
            Damn, I could get used to this.

                                   Adrian stands and approaches Keira from
                                   behind, touching her bare shoulder.

                                   Keira pulls away and glares at him.

                                   ADRIAN
                          (stroking her)
            You didn't mind last night.

                                   KEIRA
            This was his house. You want to screw me in a dead man's
            house?

                                   Adrian returns to his seat. Keira puts
                                   on the suit.

                                   ADRIAN
                          (pointing at the paper)
            Did you know they did a profile on you? Successful novelist,
            creative writing professor, and so on.

                                   KEIRA
            What do they say about the murder?

                                   ADRIAN
            Want the highlights?

                                   Keira nods.

                                   ADRIAN
            Stanley Murphy was bludgeoned with a heavy object while
            walking home drunk from league.

                                   KEIRA
            I've always loved the word bludgeon. It has a nice ring to
            it.

                                   ADRIAN
            The police don't have a clue. A few of his Gomer Pyle friends
            are quoted.

                                   Adrian looks up at Keira.

                                   ADRIAN
            Why do you hate him so much?

                                   KEIRA
            Why would you assume that?

                                   ADRIAN
            How many years did it take you to get rid of your accent?

                                   KEIRA
            I took a few voice lessons at Tulane.

                                   ADRIAN
            Masters at NYU, published your first novel at 25.

                                   KEIRA
            Why this interest in my past? I didn't realize it was resume
            day at school.

                                   ADRIAN
            You never told me you had a father until last week.

                                   KEIRA
            Mama wasn't the Virgin Mary. Besides, you are only a toy.

                                   ADRIAN
            I'm the chair of your department.

                                   KEIRA
            Like I said, a toy.

                                   Keira sits on Adrian's lap and begins
                                   kissing his neck.

                                   Adrian pushes her away.

                                   ADRIAN
            Why do you hate him?

                                   KEIRA
            Why do you care?

                                   ADRIAN
            Curiosity.

                                   KEIRA
            You want to hear the sad sob story of how Papi would sneak
            into my room at night reeking of cigarettes and Black Velvet.
            You want to hear about when Papi was short on cash he'd let
            his bowling buddies have way with me.

                                   Adrian stares in disbelief.

                                   KEIRA
            I didn't think so. Now, go start the car.

                                   Adrian exits.

                                   Keira checks herself in the mirror on
                                   last time, goes to the bed, picks up
                                   the bowling trophy, hefts it, and puts
                                   it in an oversized handbag.

                                   Keira exits.

                                   Curtain.

Aislin filled her Nalgene with ice and Mountain Dew. The woman at the counter was the owner of the small convience store, and the mother of a classmate.  Laughing, Aislin recalled stopping here nearly everyday during her high school years for a soda and a Snickers bar.

"How do you like being back in town?" the attendant asked.

Aislin choked on her drink. "You remember me?"

"You were in Adam's class and moved to Colorado after graduation," she said, taking Aislin's seventy-five cents.

Keep it about her, and don't answer questions, Aislin thought.  "How's Adam?"

Adam had been a classmate since kindergarten. A nice guy pushed into the freaks and geeks category by his participation in Honours classes.

"Oh, he spent four years in the Marines and is working as a plumber now. What about you?"

Walken and Lola watched the sunset behind the Palisades.  Lola loved those cliffs, soaring above the high mountain valley.  The rugged rock face was vertical against the crimson sky.

Walken watched Lola as she gaze at the dazzling skyline.  Lola found it odd how much her dog studied her. The Great Dane was her constant companion. He reflected many qualities of his namesake, Christopher Walken; the dog was dark, brooding, and sometimes self involved. Furthermore, Walken was the only man she’d ever loved.

“Woof,” Lola said trying to distract him from his intrigues.  He cocked his head in a quizzical manner.  Lola woofed again.  Walken finally realized the game and joined in barking.

“Lets go in.”

Bark.

Lola turned back to the house. The large Victorian was large and stately against low foothills.  Lola loved this house, wrapping her with beautiful views and security.  Since high school graduation her life had been in constant flux.  A proprietor of a nomadic life, she’d attended three different colleges before completing her bachelor’s degree.  This house now represented not just home but her new ability to deal with permanency and stability.  The house was the beautiful scar that represented healing.

Lola entered the house and watched Walken pad up the stairs and heard him enter the bedroom overhead.  Lola could just picture him sitting there looking from the bed to the door and back to the bed.  His large black face panting in anticipation as he was waiting for her to give him the signal it was okay to hop into bed.

In the downstairs bathroom, she downed two Tylenol PM with a glass of Alka-Seltzer, and brushed her teeth.  Years of insomnia led to a slight dependency on sleep aids.  The average person can fall asleep in 15 minutes or less; on a good night Lola could find slumber after two fitful hours.

Walken watching, Lola crawled into bed, settled in, and whispered his name.  On cue, he bounded into bed and curled up next to her back.  Lola had designed the space herself.  The queen-size bed was elevated above the rest of the furniture.  Decked out in deep purple and sky blue velvet the bed faced a large bank of windows.  She’d intended the space to be the ultimate in comfort to entice the sandman.

There was something to be said for sleeping with a dog.  He warmed the bed, rarely stole the covers, and there was little chance he would leave any bodily fluids aside from drool on the sheets. Sleep, however, was not possible.

Lola envisioned the uncultured masses of her hometown perusing her art and gossiping about that night so long ago.

Her mom killed a cop and got away with it… That house by the high school…No one has seen her since graduation day… Didn’t she used to date the oldest Koontz boy… She won that scholarship to the Chicago Institute of Art…

She wondered what other rumors, lies, and inflated bits of truth were being spun in her absence at her own art opening.

Irritated, she crawled out of bed followed by Walken.  Lola stood, wrapped a sweater over her nightgown, and headed for the kitchen.  She stared in to the refrigerator debating between a Coke and a Heineken for what seemed a lifetime.  Deciding on bottled water, she wandered around the drafty house needing something to occupy a racing mind.  Unlike the luxurious bedroom, the rest of the house was sparsely furnished.

She rambled through the house obsessively setting things right: a crooked picture frame, a couch that wasn’t perfectly parallel with the picture window, and the computer monitor that was tilted at an odd angle

As if under a spell, Lola dug dusty suitcases out from under the bed and began to fill them.  She was unaware of packing until was nearly done with the task. The suitcases were happy to receive sweaters, jeans, and the like.  Packing for winter in Iowa was no light task.

The perfect tickless silence of a clock stopped universe filled the suite. Bleeding, of course, is a quiet process. Crying is even quieter.

Aislyn curled into a ball at the bottom of the shower stall, cradling her bleeding fist. Sobs undulated within her body while not a whimper escaped her quaking red lips.

The bathroom was the epicenter of all life’s grief: a place to cleanse wounds, wash away the evidence of sexual transgressions, and purge toxins. A place to replace the face before returning to the world.

The night before she’d been drinking from a warm bottle of Riesling still in the brown paper bag and staggering the Venice streets like a wino. The bottle was only one method to quiet her racing mind. Sleep was no longer possible as her thoughts did not stop falling from one nightmare into another. She'd craved something beyond wine--thick, red, sweet, iron. 

This evening, upon waking, Aislyn had tried to gaze into her own pale green eyes wondering if they displayed her torment. She’d put her feeble fist through the medicine cabinet when she imagined a cloud passing through those depths of green.

Red ribbons of skin hung from her fingers. Aislyn knew she needed stitches to hold the delicate skin together; however, a hospital asks too many questions. Furthermore, her torn skin would heal in a matter of hours, returning to the porcelain smooth appearance of her infinite youth.

Aislyn stood before the shattered mirror, wound gauze around her hand, and watched her reflection fracture. The smell of her blood was dizzying. As she thought of the warm liquid passing her tongue, her lips quivered and her cuspids were aroused. She licked her enlarged canines, urging them to shrink.

Dripping and naked, she searched her spartan hotel room for her cell phone. A trail of clothes led from the door to her rumpled bed. The phone had spilled from her purse as she’d peeled her skirt and stockings off the night before.

The only message was from Alexander wondering where she was.  It had been his idea to see a psychiatrist. What he didn’t know, however, was the only doctor actively treating her illness was in Venice, many miles from their home in the mountains of Colorado.

 Aislyn slid into the black silk dress she’d bought at Armani during an extensive layover in New York. The silk flattered her lithe, athletic body and pert breasts.

 Dr. Moretti’s office was near the Palazzo Grassi just off the Grand Canal. It seemed like Pinocchio would stumble out of the office at any moment as it resembled Geppetto’s shop from the original Tuscan tale.

 “Ms. Ryan?” Moretti asked.

 “Please call me Lyn,” she said shaking the man’s withered hand. His face bore the weight of his patients’ confessions.

 “Then call me Howard.” 

 He led her into a small room packed with books and illuminated by dozens of flickering candles. She sat in a leather wingback chair facing the diminished man in distinguished clothes.

 “What seems to be the problem, Lyn?”

 “I’m lonely.”

 “Tell me about how you were created,” Howard said, ignoring Aislyn’s proclamation.

 A vampire’s creation story was comparable only to a mortal’s tale of virginity loss.

 “I was twenty-eight.”

 “What year was that?” His pen scratched against a yellow legal pad making more notes than were possible by her minimal answers.

 “It was 1877, about a hundred miles west of Chicago.”

 Scratching.

 “That would make you 124.” More scratching with that damned pen.

 “Can I just talk?”

 “Certainly.” His hand waved in a dismissive gesture.  The arrogance of immortals had rubbed off on him.

 “My father had promised my hand to a wealthy landowner in the next county.  William was a small man in good standing with the Christian community. I had to deny my Catholic upbringing to be accepted among his sober society friends.”

 “And how did denying your faith make you feel?”

 “I obviously didn’t have faith. You won’t find my believers among the undead.  Catholicism belonged to my weak widower father.

 “The abuse started on our wedding night, June 1^st, 1876.  I was a virgin; however, I was not a blushing bride. I longed to know what a man felt like.

 “William was timid when it came to carnal knowledge. He spoke in childish euphemisms: putting the horse in the barn, harvesting wheat, and burying the summer sausage. On our wedding night I tired of his idiotic fumblings and fucked him like sex starved animal. I relished in my orgasm and in the feel of his cock.”

 Howard twisted in his chair, crossing his legs away from her. Aislyn wondered if the old codger had a hard-on.

 “He beat me for enjoying it.  He said the Lord created our bodies to worship and not to fornicate like heathens. He beat me so hard with his riding crop I couldn’t walk for a week.”

 Aislin could feel her shredded hand mending itself. Healing was the only time her skin felt warm without the touch of others. She relished the heat, even in her despair.

 “Once a week for the next six months I’d point my heels to his God and wait for his thrashing and moaning to end. The next morning he’d beat me for helping him sin and keeping him from God.”

 Howard flinched with each blasphemous word. “Who helped you convert?”

 “Our nearest neighbor, Gabriel, had just lost his wife to consumption. He came to live with us that winter to cure his grief.”

 “Was Gabriel a vampire?”

 “Ellen had been his twelfth wife. The first time he seduced me was New Year’s Day 1877 while William was on his morning ride. I took the journey that Valentine’s Day. My first victim was my dear husband after I’d tied him to the bed and beat him with that riding crop.”

“Did you keep it?”

“I don’t go anywhere without it.”

“What happened to Gabriel?”

“His tastes differed greatly from mine. He preferred the blood of newborns. Although the blood of virgins is the sweetest, I could not bare the thought of killing infants.  Last I heard, Gabe is an accused serial killer in a maximum security prison.”

Peri pulled loose, chapped skin off her lips with her teeth. It was a nervous habit lost since childhood, and rediscovered in the last week. She'd avoided driving past the house where it had happened. She was now emboldened, however, by her night with Lex--somehow fortified by a healthy sexual connection--and the time seemed right to confront the ghosts of misery past.

The rambling Victorian sat on the corner in front of the high school like a sentinal to adolescent pain and education. In the decade that had passed some had torn down the large oak in the sideyard where kids had once huddled sneaking a few illict drags of nicotine before class. The lawn boasted new landscaping and the porch swing had recieved copious layers of new paint.

Peri recalled the weekend that Gideon had asked her and her mother to stay. It was sort of a trail to see if they could all live together before the vows were final. Gideon had decorated Peri's room with comic book posters, a mini fridge stocked with Mountain Dew and sweet snacks, a bed laden with downy comforts, and a drafting board with enough supplies to write, draw, and ink ten comic books.

Gideon's attention to detail enthralled Peri. In only a few short months she'd be entering the University of Iowa as a freshman art student. Mom seemed happy with Gideon and vise versa. Life was glimmering.

Mom had been called in for overtime in the ER. Peri was bent over her drawing table working on a self-portrait of herself in the same position. The drawing, a homage to Will Eisner, was coming along nicely when Gideon knocked.

"Come in."

Gideon entered in his police uniform.

"I thought you didn't have to work tonight?" Peri asked.

Gideon smiled and brushed her question to the side. "So, what do you think? Could we be a happy family here?"

Peri set down her Micron pen and swiveled in her chair to face the question. "I don't see why not. Everyone seems happy and I think I'm pretty easy to get along with."

"That's what I was counting on, Gideon said, his eyes changing from soft and inquizative to manical. Peri had seen eyes like that before when Uncle Freddie returned from the Marines a changed man.

Peri's feet dangled and kicked over her new pens as she was held aloft by a single hand at her throat. Quick as a snake he had struck. Too shocked to scream, she pulled at her fingers as he threw her on the bed.

Released from his grip she scrambled up the bed pushing pillows and bedding between them. He'd removed the handcuffs from his belt and shackled her to the headboard. She kicked at him and her foot nearly found purchase but Gideon slipped to the side as he punched her in the ear. His grunts of rage faded into a uffled ringing.

"Resisting arrest is against the law," he said, flipping her onto her stomach and twisting her hands in the cuffs drawing blood from tender skin.

"Who's daddy's little whore, now?" He ripped her pajama shorts down, while raising her to a kneeling position with his knees.

When she felt Gideon's baton enter her, Peri screamed into the pillow.

"That's right." Gideon, again, grabbed her by the throat, lifted her head so he could hear her yelps. Then he thrust himself into her from behind.

Peri had never felt such pain as if someone cut her from stem to stern. Her anus contracted and ripped. He rocked back and forth on top of her shouting obsenities, slapping her ass, and pulling her hair.

Then, suddenly, Peri heard shrieking louder than her own. A deafening siren wail, then a door slammed in her head and all was dark.

Crisp, humid air tickled the skin not covered by an oversized pea coat. Behind amber lenses, Aislin's eyes stung from exhaustion and too many cigarettes as she stared at her mother's house. The agoraphobia had gotten worse in the ten years since she'd last been home. The garden was unattended, and rolled newspapers lined the front stoop.

"Mom," Aislin called, dropping her small suitcase in the kitchen. She followed the sound of moving furniture to the second floor, skipping the squeaky step. Although a decade had passed, nothing had changed in her small bedroom. Movie posters lined the pale blue walls; comic books were stacked in piles according to author along the floorboards; sketchbooks and journals lined shelves and swallowed the small desk.

"Hi, Mom." Looking at her mom was like looking into a lake; the image was identical, but the colours were distorted in ripples. Aislin's hair was a dark red as compared to Jean's mousy brown, permed mop.

"You look tired."

"Will you wake me up in a few hours?"

Jean smiled and ducked out. Theirs was a relationship of respectful silence; mother and daughter living a muted life; few words were needed to convey the most complex emotions.

Aislin shed several layers, dropping them into the hope chest still full of household goods and a double wedding ring quilt. Thoughts swam against the current of her mind as she stared up at the ceiling dotted with glow in the dark stars. The ghosts were now taunting: making faces, blowing raspberries, and pulling at her hair. Aislin turned toward the wall and drifted away.

Waking Aislin from a hard sleep, Jean crawled in bed and nestled into her arms. The roles were reversed; Mother was scared, and the child wore a brave face and offered comfort.

Jean's agoraphobia had started slow with a bit of anxiety while grocery shopping. It was magnified by Jean's position as an in-take nurse in the local emergency room. She'd seen the pain humans inflicted upon each other. She refused to be vulnerable and refused to leave the house. She still worked full-time at the hospital. However, that was the extent of her excursions outside the house. A cousin—who was struggling to make ends meet—earned extra cash for an assortment of chores she was unable to perform.

Aislin snuggled into Jean as a child holds a doll. "Are you coming to my show?"

"I've been showing your work since you were four," she said with a small giggle. Although Aislin couldn't see her mother's face, she knew that mom was smiling as her words turned up like the corners of her mouth. "The refrigerator was never big enough for you … Today's not a good day."

"I have a date."

"That didn't take long. Who is he?"

"An attorney, I think. I didn't get his name."

"You should get ready. And I forbid you from wearing those damned ugly shoes," Jean said, pointing to the ragged, red Chuck Taylors at the footboard. "This is a special occasion and you should look nice."

"I don't normally go to my openings. A room full of people gaping at me, hoping for some sort of insight, some sort of inspiration to make their lives meaningful."

"What's wrong with that?" Jean turned over to face her daughter—nose to nose—green eyes reflecting torment across the generation.

"I'm still trying to make my life meaningful."

"Aislin! Don't talk like that!"

"I bought a new dress and heels. I promise I won't embarrass you tonight."

After a long shower, Aislin stared at herself in the mirror. The black dress was a perfect fit but without sleeves it revealed too much. The white scars that circled her frail wrists looked as though someone had tried to stuff her arm into a paper shredder, failed, and haphazardly glued the pieces back together.

Aislin hated these scars—all of them stemmed from the memories contained in this one bit of Iowa, a landscape etched in her every movement.

Aislin drove into town unannounced. She wasn't exactly expecting a town crier telling everyone she had returned and there was a public flogging at high noon the next day, but guilt and grief thought there should have been some fanfare.

Driving past a small, west-end grocer, she pictured her grandfather sitting in the parking lot in a green Ford LTD, scratching lottery tickets, and gambling away his Union dues. She passed the skating rink where she'd first been kissed by David O'Leary; the hospital where she was brought screaming into this world thirty years ago; and the courthouse where she'd spent many painful hours.

The small art gallery was tucked between a coffee shop and a used bookstore—Newton's very own beatnik art scene condensed to one block of hippie burnouts and pierced Goth kids. The gallery would have looked respectable out of its current context, with new neighbors to add elegance.

The earth—devoid of a cloudy blanket—shivered in the cold. Midwestern winters were filled with grey skies no matter the cloud cover; whereas, blue flame Colorado skies never faded even into the deep winter months. Aislin scowled at the heavens, wondering why she'd ridden a ribbon of concrete cutting through Nebraska and Iowa to arrive at this obscure destination.

The gallery was hung with dozens of black and white images of daunted men and women seemingly ripped from a library of graphic novels. The cavernous room was silent but for the padding of Aislin's Chuck Taylors on bleached pine flooring.

She was caught in front of "Broken Night" when the bell rang—the type of bell that hangs above shop doors, tinkling with each customer. Bruce Wayne entered the gallery, not the big screen version, but the hero that dances in Frank Miller's soul.

Aislin concentrated on the line drawing in front of her as she felt him draw near, with his overcoat rustling as he skipped over the other pieces and stood beside her.

"What do you think the artist was thinking when she drew this?" he asked.

Facing the tall man, Aislin thought he seemed out of place in his dark suit, wool overcoat, and haughty appearance. He looked more New York than Iowa.

"Why are you asking me?" she asked, taking a step back to take in his full breadth.

"You're drawn to this piece."

"Do you like the show, or is this how you pick up women?"

The man took the moment of reflection to step forward, his head tilted toward the ground and looking up at her under his dark brow. "I've followed Ms. Ryan's work since I was her show in Chicago last year."

Aislin didn't often meet the gaze of men; however, she wondered if there was recognition behind his grey-flecked eyes. She saw none and looked again at her signature hidden in a corner of the artwork.

"I didn't know she was from Newton until I saw the write-up in last week's paper."

"Local girl does good?" Aislin could not take her eyes from that signature, a series of loops and slashes. Her mother had called it a cartoonist's mark—a mixture of Will Eisner and Charles Schultz.

"What do you think she was feeling when she drew this?"

Aislin pointed at the lone woman perched atop a water tower watching over a sleeping city. "She wonders how a shitty burg in the middle of Iowa could cause so much pain, yet hold fascination. It's a self portrait."

"Are you a fan?" he asked, leaning back from his encroaching gaze.

Aislin caught a whiff of him. It was the perfect mixture of bar soap, freshly pressed laundry, and cologne. She closed her eyes against it. "Will you be at tonight's opening?"

"Absolutely."

"You'll be my date. I'll meet you here at seven," Aislin said, as she turned on her heel and headed for the door.

"Wait. I don't even know you're name."

"See you at seven."