(http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/m592/MistressofPen/Alison1.jpg)<br/>Name:  Allison “Al” Garvey<br/><br/>Character Type:  Indoctrinated<br/><br/>Physical Description: 28 years old, pretty, 5’9”, long dark hair, pale blue eyes, pierced left eyebrow, tattoo of the eye of horus on her shoulder blade-a piece visible when she wears her usual uniform of wife beater tank and jeans.<br/><br/>Sexual Preference:  Hetero and vanilla experience so far.<br/><br/>Skills<br/>Daring:  Has been known to try anything at least once.  Not fearless, just not controlled by fear.<br/><br/>Planner:  Can see the end from the start and able to see pitfalls before they happen.<br/><br/>Running:  She’s fast.  Went to college on a track scholarship; got a liberal arts degree which earned her a job as a research assistant for a professor.<br/><br/>Research:  She knows how to find out things.  If she hits a dead end, she usually finds another way to her goal.<br/><br/>Hard-headed:  This is a good trait in that she isn’t a follower just because; people would have to convince her their way was better than hers.  This is a bad trait because she might argue about the color of the sky if she took a dislike to someone.<br/><br/><br/>Cape Merrin, fucking Maine, Allison thought, standing beside her steaming car.  A light had lit on the dash a few hours before, but she’d stuck a piece of gum over the light and turned up the stereo in case anything made noise because she wasn’t stopping.  Well, until she had to. Even now, after 8 hours of driving, she felt she hadn’t gone far enough.<br/><br/>It had been the middle of the night when her mother’s drunken boyfriend had come home to knock her mother around some.  It was a weekly occurrence.  Allison had listened for a few minutes as the sounds escalated before grabbing her baseball bat and charging down the hall.  Her mother was watching Ghost Hunters on TV; she loved all of that paranormal, Syfy crap.<br/><br/>Now, the sonofabitch was losing it, holding her mother to the couch by her hair and ---  Allison stepped back, bat raised.  She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.<br/><br/>“Get off her, asshole,” Allison said.<br/><br/>The man looked up, his eyes gone black from lid to lid and blood coating his lips.<br/><br/>Allison stared.<br/><br/>He licked his lips and it almost looked like he smiled.  Allison swung for the moon, the bat connecting with his head and knocking him back.<br/><br/>Her eyes took in her mother’s ravaged neck and she felt like she might pass out.  The blood oozed.  If her heart was beating, Allison knew the blood should shoot across the room from the carotid artery if not the jugular.  She had to look away. If she passed out, she knew she’d be dead, too.<br/><br/>Too.<br/><br/>Allison turned and ran for the back door.  She got there a split second before what had been her mother’s boyfriend caught up, moving with odd-sounding steps after Al.  A glance back and she feinted to the side; avoiding being impaled by his claws at the last second, feeling the wind caused by his movement pass her face.  Allison turned and ran into the dining room and towards the front door, knocking chairs and tables over in her wake.  The front door was unlocked and she jerked herself around it and out.<br/><br/>He grunted and growled as he chased her.  There were thumps as he fell, not moving too well for some reason.  He hit the door, catching Allison’s hand in it.<br/><br/>Allison screamed, but stuck the bat in the door to lever it open and pull free.  She ran to the end of the porch, leaped over the rail, screaming to wake the dead, and wrenched open the door of her old VW bug.  The bug was on its last legs and had to be pop started, so was always parked facing the street at the top of the drive.  Allison released the brake, pushed it a few steps, then paused, wondering why he didn’t follow her.<br/><br/>Curiosity was killing her...  She slammed the brake on and ran to the window by the drive.  He was skewered, leaning against the front door.  He hadn’t intentionally caught her hand in the door.  It appeared a broken picture frame or chair had pierced him.  He wasn’t dead, he was just immobile.<br/><br/>His eyes slid towards the window.<br/><br/>It was enough for Allison.  She ran back to her car and got the hell away.<br/><br/>She was heading for Canada, maybe a ship somewhere...somewhere safe.<br/><br/>Allison hated that she ran, that she left her mother.  She wanted to go back and find out what had happened, to finish Gerry off...if that was Gerry.  What was he?  She felt shaky as words popped into her head from those stupid games her friends had all played in high school.  Vampire.  Nosferatu.  Allison had never believed.  All those stories of Count Dracula were from some sick bastard who liked to put people on stakes and drink their blood to scare his enemies.  And, with rapists and child molesters and serial murderers, why did we need other monsters? She wondered, wrapping her arms around herself, shivering.  She looked at her VW and sighed, shivering in the pre-dawn chill.<br/><br/>That was five years ago.  Al had settled in Cape Merrin by necessity; no money and no transportation.  She took a job at a local pub, putting her liberal arts degree to good use pulling beers and fending off the advances of the drunks.  Now that she knew, now that she’d had a slap in the face from reality, she kept watch and saw things that made her stomach roil.  Someone should do something, she thought—never thinking she was that someone.<br/>