The Brothers Pryor - Chapter 3: April Fool's Day
[The pages are delivered to Laure's bedroom, folded messily, with a note attached to the top. The note simply reads: "Because you burned all your books, and I know how much you love stories. - A" ]
In small town Tennessee, the Pryor brothers were notorious for not just their daring stunts and continuous flirtation with authority, oh no. They were infamous for their pranks. Not just one on the other or vice versa, but the pranks they pulled together. It was when the young brothers put their heads together that they were at their smartest, their most clever. Alec, with his strength and his intellect. Austin, with his humor and his willingness to do whatever it took for a laugh. They was unstoppable as a pair, a dynamic duo if ever there was one. The years brought many pranks along the way. Muddied up fur slippers to look like dead rats on the porch. Honey in the shampoo bottle. Tequila in the creamer. The laughs were endless and their creativity never seemed dwindle.
Austin was ten on this particular day of the April Fool. Ten, and very much addicted to the company of his brother and friends. He wasn't necessarily an adrenaline junkie, but the boy lived for the hours after school he spent tucked beneath Alec's arm, watching as the older guys passed around cigarettes and flasks and talked about the hottest high school girls. He wanted to be one of them, more than anything. He wanted what they had, wanted to do what they did. These guys were little Austin's heroes, and he couldn't wait to be as old as his brother. Old enough to drive, old enough to kiss girls. Old enough to take a puff of that smoke and not make a fool of himself coughing. One day, he'd be there. But for now, he was happy with this. Happy with their adolescent adoration of him. Austin was the token small fry and the boy would have had it no other way.
It was Alec's idea, this particular prank, with embellishments from Austin and the other guys. Everyone -- including their parents -- knew of the boys' tendencies to get in trouble. Not just with the police, but with the doctors, with their own well beings. It would be believable, and that was key. They'd looked up instructions online for making homemade blood -- starch, die, some other ingredients they were able to find at the local market. Easy stuff. Alec used his pocket knife to help rip up some of Austin's jeans, the shirt he wore. They rubbed dirt everywhere, mussed his hair, spread the makeshift blood onto his skin, into his clothes. The final touch was artificial tears, dropped one after the other into his bright, excited blue eyes until the droplets were streaming down his cheeks, leaving tracks in the dirt and the grime.
"Mom!" Alec's voice boomed from the driveway as he pulled in haphazardly, nearly knocking over the mailbox with the Impala. Austin whimpered in the front seat as his brother yanked him out, his arms holding tight around his 'bloodied' midsection. Alec continued to scream out for their mother, carrying Austin to the porch before dropping him hurriedly onto the bench swing. Their mother came in a flurry, screeching and fluttering over her youngest, trying to make sense of the blood and the tears.
She should have known, really. Later, when other parents gave them flack for their evil prank, the boys would blame their mother for not having realized what day it was. Should have seen it coming, they said. Their poor mother had gone on believing the injuries were real until their father came out, a tumbler of cheap whiskey in his hand. One look at Austin and the eldest Pryor knew his boys had pulled a fast one. It wasn't until after a swift kick was placed firmly in Alec's gut that their dad's laughter filled their ears. Then Alec's, then Austin's. It had been a successful prank, as good as any of the others, as made obvious by their mothers cursing and wailing as she went back inside, fake blood stains all over her best apron.
They weren't sorry. Never would be. Couldn't be. Sharing that rare laughter with their father would make a hundred swift kicks to the gut worth it, every damn time.
[The letters came to her long after Isaac had left, and she was sitting curled up on her bed. The flames in the fireplace were dying, and the servant went to stoke them after handing her the papers. Laure's hands trembled violently as they held the manuscript. She didn't want to open it. She didn't want to choke down the words, whether they were happy or sad or spiteful or whatever. The bottom line was, they wouldn't be words of forgiveness. So they would wound her anyway. It would be a story of things she could never have, no matter the topic. But she was alone, and a single story on her bookshelf would keep her company. Laure shakily opened up to the first page. Then the second. By the time she got to the third, the end, she was happy she couldn't cry. She was happy tears could run down her face. Laure dropped the last page, all three laying around her feet as she brought her knees to her chest to bury her face between them. It was a beautiful memory and she wanted no part of it. She wasn't supposed to be a part of it. He pushed her away, and she didn't know what this meant. Laure felt herself go ice cold, only for a moment, before the numbness of being vampire returned. She wept into the darkness until the fire finally died.]
