The True Story of Frankie Felonwood

Inspired By Writober Picture Prompt #5- Its In Our Blood

Her name is Frankie Felonwood and she became a Vampire on Christmas day-it was snowing and Frankie was taking out the trash when she slipped on a patch of ice in her driveway.

She banged the back of her head on the curb and the last thing she heard with her own ears was the sound of a storm -crashing thunder, then she smelled the lightning before it began to flash and she realized the storm was in her head.

Frankie’s  mouth filled with blood and she tried to spit it out, but she couldn’t because her tongue wouldn’t move and that’s when she knew that she must have bit some of it off when she fell and now she was choking on it.

Just as her last breath was leaving her lungs a crow flew over her body, it’s shadow broke away from the crow and landed on her face .

From it’s perch on her chin, it folded it’s shadow wings tight around it’s body and then hit flew straight up her nose.

There was a crack as it made it’s way into her skull through her nasal cavity, but luckily Frankie was dead by then. That sound shouldn’t be the last thing you hear before you die.

When Frankie opened her eyes a few non-heartbeats later, she was a vampire.

Nothing about Frankie Felonwood’s new life was like the stories and movies about Vampires she had heard all of her life- she wished  it had been because all around being a Vampire wasn’t what one would call a dignified existence.

I mean, how many vampire stories start with a woman choking on her own tongue?

That’s right.

Not one.

Photographer Unknown

She may have been a clumsy Vampire ( she never mastered the flying thing and turning into other animals like bats and rats and crows) but Frankie did have a refined palet when it came to blood.

In turn that taste drove her to become a good hunter because she would only drink what  smelled good-

the lady who worked at the  Gas and Go had rich fragrant blood- have you ever walked into a kitchen when a freshly baked pie was being taken out of the oven and you can smell the apples and sugar and cinnamon? That’s what the cashier’s blood smelled like.

The homeless man who lived behind the building where Frankie worked- his liver was destroyed by cheap booze and his arms and the space between his toes was an endless landscape of needle tracks, but his blood smelled like Fish and Chips with a splash of vinegar.

How could she resist him?

That night Frankie sat on his chest and sipped away slowly, so slowly that she was almost caught in the first rays of Sunlight-which indeed would have fried her on the spot.

Frankie guessed that the smell of charred Vampire was probably pretty nasty  so she took extra care to avoid anything that even came close to mimicking sunlight.

Finding tasty smelling blood wasn’t as easy as it sounds, Frankie almost starved to death last Halloween because blood smelled like blood- all she could smell was wet copper pennies and it turned her stomach.

Then one evening, if you could get by the smell of Vanilla body spray and hairspray- which Frankie did- because under that all her long waited for meal smelled like theater popcorn with extra butter.

Dinner was walking up the steps from the train platform and Frankie swooped up from the railroad tracks where she had been sitting.

Do you know what happens when a Vampire gets hit by a train? Nothing. All of her parts crawl back to each other and in her case thread themselves back into Frankie The Vampire.

Once she found she had somehow picked up an extra eye and it was now at home just above her left ear.

It’s blue.

Anyway the process  doesn’t take long. So Frankie does this to kill time.

Now,  before I got off track I was telling you about Frankie and her Popcorn Girl.

Frankie grabbed her as she flew up the metal steps and in her frenzy driven by the need to taste that popcorn, she almost splattered them both against the glass ceiling over the  staircase

. She didn’t think it was possible for Popcorn Girl ( A tub of theatre popcorn with extra extra butter girl) to scream louder- but she did so Frankie broke her neck midflight with one hand and then she swooped higher and higher and she landed them both on a building over looking the railroad tracks.

Frankie couldn’t pace herself and enjoy her meal like she did with Homeless Man who smelled like fish and chips with a splash of viniger.

Frankie was in a frenzy,  driven by  uncontrollable  thirst for theatre popcorn.

Frankie tore and chewed and licked and slurped until all that was left of Theatre Popcorn Girl were her clothes, her lower jaw and her right foot- minus her toes.

Now chock full of theatre popcorn Frankie went to the ledge and spread her arms out wide.

THIS was what being a  Vampire was supposed to be about.

She felt powerful, feral, she felt as cunning as a thousand cunning criminals and as dark and evil as the Devil himself.

Frankie through her head back and when she laughed the smell of popcorn filled the air.

This new and improved Frankie spun gracefully on one toe, she stepped off of the ledge and into a puddle of Theatre Popcorn Girl- then she slipped and fell face first into the goo-

and when she lifted her head up she threw her head back and spat out part of her tongue.

The Dracula Parrot
Photographer Uknown

 

The Bare Bones of Halloween

This wonderful Halloween Display was the last one created by the man who put these up every year in my Son’s adopted home state of Wisconsin, USA

It might look like a groups of Scary skeletons- and there’s even a hearse in here, but if you really look- it’s obvious those bones are  having fun.

He captured the Spirit of Halloween perfectly and I’m sorry he won’t be around to give us this great treat again.

PHOTO A.M. Moscoso
Halloween 2023
Wisconsin USA

PHOTO A.M. Moscoso
Halloween 2023
Wisconsin USA

PHOTO A.M. Moscoso
Halloween 2023
Wisconsin USA

PHOTO A.M. Moscoso
Halloween 2023
Wisconsin USA

PHOTO A.M. Moscoso
Halloween 2023
Wisconsin USA

WRITOBER PHOTO CHALLENGE#7 – SKELETONS

 

The Roommates

I told her during our entire life together that I was stronger then her, that I would outlast her and long after her beauty faded and was eaten away by time, mine would remain.

As our years together wore on, I whispered and groaned in complaint about our life together.

I ground my teeth in anger, popped my knuckles in anger. Sometimes I would just sit and stare at the wall and refuse to move no matter  how loud she yelled or cried or begged for me to get out of bed or up off of our sofa.

Ha! I was as stubborn as the day is long- and  the nights too. On those days we went nowhere when the Spirit did not move me.

Sometimes I refused to life a finger even when it wanted me to.

 

Last November I  woke up to find she was not moving- not a twitch of the eye, not a breath passing from between her slightly parted lips.

I smiled. I touched her chest. It was still.

Free, I thought.

I am free of her at last.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

So now I am in our coffin, dressed in her finest dress, smiling my eternal smile. I am still strong, my limbs are still threaded, stapled and glued together. I glow in the dark like a candle just about to give up it’s flame.

And I am still beautiful.

For Writetober DAY #7 Image

 

 

 

Art Is In The Eye of The Beholder

My favorite artists

write stories in the dark

sing when it is raining

sculp when it is snowing and the roads are covered with ice.

 

My favorite artists

are not put off by

noise, or drama or wailing and fighting

and their hands and minds work steadily

from sunrise to sunset.

 

My favorite artists

are Embalmers like me

and it is a shame that our finest work

is locked in darkness and forgotten under manicured lawns

or hills covered with dead leaves and lost  time.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Evergreen Washelli- Seattle Washington