About the Author: A member of SVC’s Shires Press Publishing Program for publishing his first book, Jose Ferreras (Creative Writing, Class of 2017) started writing this five-part series of “character teasers” to give sneak peeks into the main, supernatural personality of his novel, titled Decoded. Jose feels happiest when immersing himself in fantasy and supernatural writing. He hopes that this teaser series will encourage readers to pick up a copy of his book at Northshire Bookstore when it is officially released in May of 2017.

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Navire des Dieux, Part One

by Jose Ferreras

The sound of the gunfire going off was deafening to her ears. Blood splattered across her face and dirtied her golden hair as she tried to process what it was that had just happened. She watched as the man in front of her collapsed onto the ground in a motionless heap — the blood spilled to the ground. This could not be happening. He couldn’t be dead… It had all started as a normal day would for Alexandria Eskil. When she had woken up that morning, she’d had no idea that it was the day that her father would die.

He had made a big breakfast for her that morning. When she had entered the kitchen after her morning routine, she was greeted by a mountain of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and sausages. Julio had received notice of a raise at work that morning and wanted to go all out in celebration. He’d even called her out of school that morning so that they could spend the entire day together. Normally, her father was against skipping out on school. “Alexandria,” he would say, his Mexican accent thick as can be, “as a young Latina, your education is everything…” If he wanted her to skip out on school that day so that she could spend it with him, who was she to let him down?

After breakfast, Julio took his daughter out to the movies so that they could see the new Ben Stiller movie, Meet the Parents. Afterwards, he even took her out to lunch and then clothes shopping. What started off as a normal morning had become a day that, in the years to come, she would remember vividly. After shopping, they took a trip to the Oregon Zoo and then ended their day of celebration with a hefty dinner at a local, upscale restaurant.

Everything about the day was perfect and then, the night went wrong. After their dinner, they were walking their way back to the car when they were interrupted by a group of men. The men were obnoxiously loud as they made their interest in Alexandria clear. She allowed her father to pull her closer to his side as they tried to ignore the obviously intoxicated men, but they were persistent and followed them to the car.

Julio helped his daughter into the car as the men closed in around them. She watched as the guys started to speak to her father; she could hear their muffled voices as they spoke obscenely about her to him. She could tell that her father was holding himself back, trying to keep calm about everything. And suddenly, within a blink of an eye, Alexandria heard as one of the men referred to her as a “spanish slut” and witnessed her father lose it. He swung at the man who spoke, his fist colliding into the other’s face.

Alexandria swung the car door open and jumped out to help her dad as the other guys reacted and attacked him. She ran up to them, demanding that they stop hitting her father, but she was ignored. She jumped at one of the men and grabbed onto his hair to stop him. He instantly pushed her off of him as another grabbed onto her to hold her down. It was then that the guy her father had first hit pulled out the gun…

The blood splattered across her face.

Alexandria let out a petrified scream and found herself overwhelmed with fear as she yanked herself out of the man’s arms to drop next to her father. Tears fell from her eyes as the drunk men laughed at her. They killed her father. They killed her father and they were laughing. She was beyond furious — they wouldn’t get away with it.

Slowly, she stood up onto her feet, her eyes glossed over in anger as she stared the men down. They watched her with interest and taunted her. They obviously had nothing to fear — she was nothing but a spic, alone in the city at night. Alexandria flexed her fingers as she felt a warmth come from within her. Suddenly, the men stopped taunting her as they looked into her eyes – her pupils were gone and her eyes were now glowing white.

She threw her hands up in front of her and a beam of light shot out from her palms and slammed the group of intoxicated men off their feet. They hit the ground hard as Alexandria charged at them, her body going into overdrive as she subdued the men who jumped back up to fight. Her senses were heightened — she knew what they were doing before they did it. She could smell as their substance inspired confidence faltered and was replaced by fear. When Alexandria had the man who had killed her father pinned by the heel of her boot, the other guys scattered, leaving their friend to his fate.

Alexandria looked down at her father’s killer with disgust; but still her anger slowed down as she processed everything that had occurred. The urge to kill the bastard was strong, but despite the body of her murdered father near her, she could hear his voice, urging her not to do it. “Mi hija,” she could hear him say, “please, think about what you are doing.”

She let the man go and backed away from him as he quickly jumped up onto his feet and took a step away in the opposite direction. After a moment, the murderer took off at a run, and Alexandria watched him disappear into the night.

She could hear the sirens from the police cars and ambulances as they made their way to the source of the gunshots — someone must have called the cops. She turned to her father and made her way over to him just as the squad cars turned onto the empty, Portland streets. As they grew closer, Alexandria looked down at her hands, thinking of the beam of light that shot out of it almost five minutes ago…

If only her father were alive to explain what the heck had just happened…

Want to read more Alexandria Eskil? Check out Jose’s full novel, Decoded, when it is available for pre-order at Northshire Bookstore in April, 2017.

Copyright © Jose Ferreras (2016) All Rights Reserved.