Free The House by Emma Faragher

somewhere had decided to dye
them pink.
    “What happen
to the organic food movement?” I asked.
    “They all died
of starvation after the food prices hit the roof,” Stripes laughed.
I found myself laughing with her. We were both too young to
remember when organic food was big, but I’d grown up with a family
who believed in grow-your-own. We’d had a vegetable patch as well
as several chickens, The House has a vegetable patch but it doesn’t
produce enough to feed all of us and chickens always run away from
Marie. Usually animals like us but, try as she might, Marie could
not get chickens to come anywhere near her. Although the roasts
following her attempts were definitely worth the stress of it.
    The food,
despite looking awful, did taste pretty good and, as far as I knew,
the same as the normal variety. It disappeared all too quickly for
my liking but since we’d already had the biggest single portions
available it would look rather suspicious to go back for more.
Sometimes I thought that we were over careful, that nobody was
going to notice that we ate just a little bit more, or moved just a
little bit too fluidly, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Normal people
wouldn’t notice but the ones that knew about us would, and humans
who knew about us fell into two categories: those that were related
to us and those that killed as many of us as possible. I gave the
food counter one last longing look anyway before we left.
    “We should
probably go back soon,” I sighed. Stripes looked up from her empty
plate with the look of someone woken from a good dream.
    “I suppose,”
she replied. “Do you think you can control yourself around the new
lion?” It was a valid question. While I tended to panic when faced
with five well-trained vampyre, I generally had quite a temper.
    “I’ll manage, assuming Hercules hasn’t ripped him to shreds
already,” I smiled. The image of Hercules leaping at him was one of
the funniest things I had seen in a long time. “Come on, I’m sure
Marie is going to have something to say about our unwelcoming
attitude to someone obviously troubled and in need of help.” I
rolled my eyes and Stripes laughed; Eddie insults Marie and she
tells us off.
    Back at the
main entrance our pods were divulged by the automatic retrieval
system after we presented our ID cards to the thin podium.
    The journey
back took the same time as the journey there. However, we dawdled
between the garage and The House. Neither of us really wanted to
know what faced us when we went back in. A part of me hoped that
Eddie had shoved off and left but it was a vain hope. He was
standing by the front door and I half expected him to have a
cigarette in his mouth. He didn’t of course; smoking was all but
illegal.

 
Chapter 6
    “Hello.” He
was leaning against the outside wall. I hate to admit it but he
looked damn good there. His blond hair was the perfect length to
complement his face and his skin was the perfect tan that
accentuates all of a person’s best features. His stance was
confident but closed, with his arms crossed loosely over his chest.
He managed to attract attention and repel people at the same time.
Quite an achievement.
    “You changed,”
he said. I looked down at myself and it took me a moment to realise
that he meant my clothes.
    “My breakfast
was down the other one.” My voice was stiff and uncertain; I wasn’t
sure how I was supposed to act.
    “Oh, well.
Shaun did react quite …” he paused and licked his lip, thinking, “…
unexpectedly.”
    “Not really.”
Stripes came to my rescue. “You think whatever life you’ve had is
hard; you haven’t got a clue about the rest of us. Nobody comes
here because they want stimulating conversation.” She sounded warm
and polite but there was an edge to her voice that I very rarely
heard there anymore. It made me wonder about the parts of her life
that she had never shared with me. Then again, there were large
parts of my life that I had never