Gilmer Country — home to both Glenville State College and our esteemed Cedarcrest Sanctum — was shown in a recent report to be the second-poorest county in West Virginia out of fifty-five counties. That sounds bad…until you realize the cost of living isn’t high here and college students (for the most part) aren’t working.
You also wouldn’t know it seeing all the upgrades GSC has been making over the past few years.
Fortunately, Glenville retains its country charm. I grew up in St. Clairsville “Go Devils!” Ohio — in spitting distance of Wheeling, West Virginia — but I consider myself a country girl and mountaineer at heart, always looking to spend as much time as possible at my grandparent’s farm.
I refrain from the word Hillbilly; I’m more like a Hillbecky.
I know Vampires in both Wheeling and Washington, D.C., but I can’t imagine subsisting in the city. Daytime below ground is a requirement for us, so penthouse suites and park-view condos are out of the question in terms of practicality — unless you have a private Batman-esque express elevator straight down into the basement. And how bad would living in New Orleans be with all the flooding? Yes, according to Anne Rice, the Big Easy is infested with immortals, but that has to be pure fiction; no one I know would spend their day’s rest in a flooded grave (it’s terrible what keeps happening there).
Vampires who are the feeding-on-criminal-scum types have to avoid authorities, closed-circuit television monitoring, and who knows what else. I mean, when people are hungry, they go where the food is; there’s a support system in place, right? You don’t put your Johnny Appleseed bag over your shoulder to pick fruit trees or milk a cow for something to pour over breakfast cereal. It’s the same with domesticated Vampires; you know where your next meal is coming from and it shouldn’t be a surprise pain-in-the-neck to anyone.
Still, the country is laid-back and takes its time. Give me the sounds of crickets and rustling leaves over sirens and screams any night.
Your mileage may vary…and isn’t that little vampire country mouse adorable?
Keep each other safe.
~ Janiss
Email janiss.connelly@cedarcrestsanctum.com
Twitter @JanissConnelly
Instagram @janiss.connelly
Facebook @JanissConnelly
Tumblr janissconnelly.tumblr.com
Google+ JanissConnelly
Discus @justjaniss
This brings us back to controlling an election cycle. Sure, maybe mention to the new small-town mayor that the Blood Bank doesn’t need new surveillance cameras (which is ridiculous because Vampires couldn’t use any of that blood, but that’s a different story) or to declare an “abandoned” century-old mansion on the edge of town a state landmark to ensure it’s never torn down and must be maintained by the city. Neat ideas, sure, but on a larger scale, problems ensue…
I used to read my mom’s old paperback romance books: Danielle Steel novels. What’s wrong with falling for a renowned heart-transplant surgeon these days? Maybe what I remember are the heroines: “a glamorous, well-to-do young writer,” or “a beautiful young journalist.” Yes, there’s a pattern here — only the young get to fall in love ’cause those are the rules — but when you don’t have to worry about money, you can concentrate on everything else you want out of life without consequence (insert sarcastic laugh here).
That said, if you come at me with the intent to harm myself or my charges, I will end you. Maybe I’ll give you a chance to turn your ass around and maybe I won’t. There are plenty of ways I can kill you, some faster than others and I have quite the imagination. Oh, that’s against the law? The last time I checked, there weren’t any Mountain State politicians exactly pandering to the Vampire Vote, so when you cross my threshold, consider anything that happens to you justified — not to mention we have a really great cleaning crew on staff.
So, too, can living people, but most dismiss the tell-tale signs as a mood swing or stray passing thought. What humans shrug off, animals are startled by because their emotions are not complex; they understand such emotions are not their own even if they can’t be sure of the source.
His eyes darted around in panic, finding himself in a hospital bed rather than tending one. I watched his shoulder lurch as he attempted to use his hand, but I had already told him he couldn’t use his arms or legs; he’d simply forgotten — also my doing. Did you know screaming sounds a lot like someone gasping for breath when they can only whisper? That was when I stood up from my comfortable chair. He recognized the illusion I had planted into his mind.
For oneself, for family, for their way of life — whatever — but it still all comes down to one moment: the decision to pull the trigger. If it’s easy to do, then something is very wrong. Taking a life should never be easy, and if it is, the killer isn’t thinking about who they’re killing, only completing a task. They’ve already justified what they’re going to do and disconnected everything else.
But what if you can’t? West Virginia is full of rest homes, both assisted and non-assisted (I’m not including hospice, which is an entirely different thing). Myself and a few volunteers have recently been paying these places a visit, looking for and and all discrepancies, opportunities for improvement, but mostly abusers and people who shouldn’t be working there — a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
No, it’s not mind-altering or earth-shattering, but there it is. A firm handshake simply isn’t a full-body catch-and-release embrace. Hugs are more intimate and more empathetic; they offer trust and earn trust in return. There’s even brain chemistry science behind it, such as in 
Cedarcrest Sanctum 