When people spoke of things that went bump in the night, Charlie had always assumed that those words were nothing but ghost stories. The sorts told in tents in backyard sleepovers, with flashlights held under the chin to create ghastly and spooky shadows over perfectly ordinary faces. That was how it worked on TV, anyway. Not that she'd had much time for things like that when she was younger. After a brief whirlwind affair, and the subsequent beheading of the first guy who'd properly caught her attention and the discovery of fucking vampires -- no, kindred. Smiling Jack had cackled that heavy-smoker laugh and corrected her when she'd called them that. Fuck.
She'd wanted a cigarette so bad, but as shaking hands had moved to light it... There was no hit at the back of her throat, none of that light-headed floaty-ness that came with the first smoke of the day. No, she'd found that fix in the vodka-soaked, unwashed throat of some poor bum minding his business and trying to find a shady corner to do his business. She could still taste the sweat, and remember that initial high as his blood had pooled into her mouth.
That, she discovered quickly, was far better than any high she'd ever had. Funny, that, how the thing inside of her had purred like a cat who'd been scratched juuust right. Charlie hadn't expected to find another one like her this quickly. Not without the guiding point of a finger and a 'get the fuck out and do this for me' to lead her to them. Anything to avoid the Ocean House Hotel, that stood abandoned like a tombstone of something that once had been.
This fucker looked just as out of place as she did. When she caught his eye, Charlie made her way over. A little less clumsily that she might've in life, but she moved to settle in the stool beside him.
"Hey. Don't suppose you'd know a thing or two about ghosts, would you?"
@bloedbeest, liked for a small starter.
