FRIDAY CONTINUED ...

... Alice usually sings and makes plenty of noise when she is in the shower, though as it so happens to be, things were unusually quiet after Janice had shut the hotel room door. Janice pushed open the door to the bathroom. To her things were indeed very quiet, too quiet in fact. The curtain was pulled around the bathtub which incorporated the shower. The room was fairly well steamed up but there was no water running. Alice was not singing. She was not making any sound at all. The only movement Janice could be sure of was of that with which she was creating herself.

The steam began to dissipate with the door to the bathroom being open. Janice quietly called out for Alice asking if she is alright. There was no response. Steam soon cleared enough to reveal a pool of red on the tiled bathroom floor. What is this? And why does it seem familiar?

Janice slowly and fearfully got closer and closer to the shower curtain and what she saw when she pulled back the curtain sent her running out of her hotel room and down the hallway screaming as loudly as she could. Her father heard the scream, as probably did everyone else in the hotel; he got to Janice before she could get too far away.

There was no way Brian was completely going to calm Janice down but, he did manage to get somewhat of a response out of her when he asked her what was wrong. When Janice had pulled back the shower curtain, she saw Alice lying motionless in the bathtub with both her wrists having been cut across from one side to the other. Blood oozed out from both cuts and dripped from Alice's right wrist onto the floor as her arm rested against the bathtub with the palm of her hand facing upwards.

The reaction to seeing such a thing sent Janice into a frenzy. It had been something she most definitely had not expected to see even with the whole sense of familiarity she had in that moment. Denise stood at her hotel door as Janice told of what she had seen and Denise would soon let out a scream of her own fearing, of course, the worst for Alice.

Brian called for Denise asking her to come out and stay with Janice and stand with her in the hallway so that he could go check on Alice. Both wanting to accompany her husband and not wanting to see possible disaster with Alice, Denise would remain with Janice.

How can a parent prepare for a moment like this? Such a thing is impossible. There must be a plausible explanation for what Janice saw or for what she thought she saw. Still Brian could feel dread for what he was about to head into.

When Brian entered the girl's room, he could hear singing coming from the bathroom. The shower was running. He had not been expecting this, hoping for it, yeah, but not expecting it. Alice appeared to be alive and well. She screamed at her father to get out once she discovered he was near. Being naked and showering, she hardly wanted her father to be in the same room as her no matter the fact that a curtain has been drawn.

Brian refused to leave without seeing his daughter's wrists. One arm at a time, Alice showed her dad her wrists through a gap in that shower curtain. There was not a mark on her, and Brian was left wondering as to what the hell was going on.

At this point and still standing by the door of her parent's hotel room, Janice became overwhelmed by that strange sense of familiarity. It was as if she was in two places at the same time. This however was more than a twin connection acting up than anything else. The feeling was more like as if she was having an out of body experience but rather than floating out above herself, Janice felt trapped in between states. Something had happened to Alice and Janice knew this to be fact.

Such strangeness for Janice, existing between the conscious and sub-conscious while being caught within the real moment she had just experienced and the memory of the dream with the drop of blood hanging in mid-air, if indeed that moment was even a dream at all.

After things had calmed down somewhat and with everyone having readied themselves, the family, as a unit, began to make their way to the hotel restaurant. They met outside their hotel rooms before heading down the lengthy corridor towards the elevators together in silence.

When the elevator door opened before them on their floor a tall man exited, his dark shoulder length hair was slicked back and he wore tinted glasses, a dark suit with a blood red shirt with no tie while also having a second pair of dark sunglasses hanging from his jacket's outer breast pocket. Adjusting his tinted glasses in the manor of offering a brief greeting, the man continued along his way.

Alice smiled as she watched this man pass and she done what she could to prevent a giggle from escaping. Janice could sense her sister's giddiness, still feeling quite uneasy herself. That man who passed just there, Janice is at a loss as to why he should seem so ... familiar. This very same man exiting the elevator on the second floor was sitting on a couch in the lobby when the family themselves exited the elevator on the ground floor.

Brian seemed to be the only one to physically notice the presence of the man in the lobby, that man of course being Gabriel Grimmel. Before Brian could inquire as to how this man could have got from the second floor to the lobby before he and his family did and as to why that man exited the elevator on the floor he did only to return straight back to the lobby, he was interrupted by the girls arguing about what had happened earlier.

'Girls, girls that is enough' speaks Brian, 'can we not just get one night or even just an hour or two together where we can just be civilized and be a family?'

The twins quietened, Alice smiled again while Janice crossed her arms and looked away before all four continued on their way to the hotel restaurant. As they did this, a man named Lucius followed by two other men made his way out of the bar and towards the main hotel exit, glancing over to Gabriel while tapping at his watch. Gabriel acknowledged the move knowing that Lucius and his two companions, wherever they were going, would ultimately not move too far away.

All during dinner Janice felt that everything was not as it should be. She more than felt it, she knew it. It plagued her thoughts, her soul, and every fiber of her being. This man, this stranger, who is he? And what is the connection she feels towards him? Has he influenced, changed Alice in some way?

Whatever it is that Janice feels, she can't help but believe it to be wrong while at the same time feeling that doesn't necessarily need to feel wrong. It is something different and there certainly is something different about her sister but at all that Janice attempts to put the whole thing down to whatever it was that she had experienced earlier along with believing that her blood drop dream was having some kind of an adverse effect on her.

Strangeness would continue when even Brian and Denise took notice when Alice ordered a fillet steak blue, definitely not a typical order for a fifteen-year-old girl especially when she decided that vegan was the way to go only a few months back. So, this, whatever this is, is really happening.

***

An outdoor darkness had well and truly fallen by the time the indoor dinner had concluded. Despite still being worried about the earlier incident, both Brian and Denise were prepared to let the girls do their own thing for mum and dad would go on to enjoy a drink or two in the hotel bar. Brian made sure both girls had their mobile phones switched on and with them before they parted company.

Quite a crowd had gathered in the lobby by this time. Some were checking into the hotel, with darkness having come and all, while others were lounging around on and about the lobby furniture. Strangely enough there was not even one mirror anywhere in the lobby and this was something that both girls would only just notice for the first time.

Had there been any mirrors there at all? Maybe, maybe not, but that glass table with the wooded frame, well that had definitely been removed.

Even though Janice and Alice were well used to being stared at, they couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable as they moved into the lobby having indeed come from the hotel restaurant. It was as if all eyes were on them while those watching in their own way seemed at least a little strange too.

'Would you like to join us ladies?' asked Gabriel as he moved close enough to actually introduce himself.

Janice recognized that voice straight away. 'What the hell is going on?' she wondered as she gasped and opened her eyes wide. She hesitated for just a moment. Her intrigue overpowered her wonder and a calming sensation quickly set in.

'All is fine sister; we are all friends here' Alice assured Janice.

Fine? Things were anything but fine. They were very strange to say the least. These people all around are certain more than just people, Janice could tell this but how exactly she could, she did not know. Maybe it is because of the twin connect for Alice certainly is not quite right either.

Later in the evening Brian and Denise would become shocked and in particular Brian would become infuriated to find that the girls had joined company with the gathered crowd in the lobby among which sat the man Brian had noticed earlier. It had also looked like the girls had been drinking what appeared to be red wine.

Almost straight away Brian ordered the girls to go to their room. Before beginning to make their way to their own room Alice told her dad to relax for she and her sister were only having fun, this is a vacation after all, vacations are supposed to be fun. Gabriel got up from where he was sitting and approached Brian.

'Sir ... I must apologize, I invited the girls to sit with us, I should have had made sure with your good self that this invite would be alright with you. I can inform you though that the invite was in good keeping.'

Inside Brian was furious, he was fuming.

'I suppose you are one of these so-called Vampires?!'

'Yes sir, that would be correct. My name is Gabriel Grimmel, and I am not looking for trouble, all I want is to improve relations between ourselves and the human race, I can see no reason why we cannot both live together in peace.'

Gabriel held out his hand in front of Brian. While ignoring Gabriel's offer of a handshake, Brian pointed his own finger in the face of the man who stood before him.

'I do not care who you are, or of what you think you are, alright? Just stay away from my daughters and please leave us the hell alone.'