1
On the outskirts of Shelton Texas, a rather large house was once a home to a family of five; a widow raising four kids with money from her inheritance from her husband. By all accounts, they were a normal, average American family. Three of the children, having not finished school, attended daily and their mother rented out their spare bedroom to bring in extra money in addition to her sizable inheritance. They had grieved the loss of the man that had been a wonderful father and husband and they had, for the most part, moved on with their lives as best they could. But on a cool night in July, this house had an evil thrust upon it, the likes of which they never before could have possibly imagined. That house is now a ruin of it's former self, blackened from the fire that was the only means by which the stains of blood could have been removed from its walls.
It had been a ridiculously hot day, the temperature rising over one hundred degrees and one could have cooked their eggs on the sidewalk (if they were interested in sidewalk eggs, that is). One could look off into the distance and see a mirage simmering above the ground like the glimmer of water.
After finishing school for the day, James Matheson spent most of his afternoon and evening reading. As his favorite form of entertainment, James read as often and as much as he could; on the bus to and from school, during classroom free time, at home while his siblings watched television, in waiting rooms, and everywhere he could. He often carried a mass market paperback in his back pocket so that he could quickly become engulfed in the land of horror fiction once again. James had read everything Stephen King ever wrote, as well as much of Bram Stoker's work, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury and countless others. When he sat down to watch a movie, it would most likely be an adaptation of a novel he had just finished.
The walls of his bedroom were plastered with posters from hard rock bands and horror movies. The members of Metallica glared at him from one of these posters and Freddy Krueger brooded from another, his long-nailed glove in front of his burned, twisted face. On the wall with the door to the hallway, a long book case covered all of it except for the door. Many hardback first editions (inherited from his father) were displayed on it. A television stood across from the bed against one wall and a desk sat next to the window, an old Underwood typewriter standing on it's weathered and splintered surface. James had inherited the desk and typewriter from his father as well. This is where James sat as the night enveloped the town, bringing an odd cool with it that unnerved him a little.
That cool didn't seem natural to him. It was strange to go from such a hot day to such a cool night, he thought. It seemed sinister and unreal to him. And such was his nature. His imagination was a powerful tool which was always kept sharp.
He sat at his typewriter with a clean sheet of paper rolled into it, looking out the window as if hoping for some sort of inspiration. His shirt was off and when he pushed up the window to let in a light breeze, it felt like a blessing on his skin, which had been sweating all day. He lived on the second story of his mother's rather large and isolated house and the heat rose up to his room all day, making him sweat like a cold glass of water on a hot day. Slipknot was on his CD player (this was also helpful for inspiration) and he was ready to tackle a new short story, beat it into submission, and make it lie still on the pages.
There was no girl in his life and he was not particularly interested in finding one. What he was interested in was writing good fiction and he felt as though nothing could slow him down. He would be the next Stephen King (at the very least, the next Dean Koontz), he thought. He sent his short stories off to fantasy, horror, and literary magazines often and he felt that it was only a matter of time before he received his first acceptance letter.
As he began brainstorming his next story, his brother burst through the bedroom door. At nineteen years old, James wondered if Corey was ever going to move into his own place or if he would live with his mother forever. He was the oldest of Marie Matheson's children, but sometimes he seemed the least mature of them.
“Whatcha doin' bro?” he asked, striding over James' red carpeted floor to look at his typewriter. “Writing another lame ass story James? Gonna submit it to another lame magazine and add to your collection?” He pointed at the spike on James' desk where he had stabbed all his many rejection slips. Corey seemed unaware of the irony in calling his brother lame. He sported a week's worth of stubble on his cheeks and his black hair was shaggy, sticking up in the back. With no job, Corey laid around on the couch on most days trying to get his mother off his back and watching TV.
“Corey, c'mon man. Leave me alone, alright? I had some good ideas going until you came barging in here.”
“Dude, you've never had a good idea in your life. Your little dweeb stories are all stock. An original idea has never crossed your idiot head.”
“Go fuck yourself man,” James said. “You're so lame, you don't even have your own place and you're nineteen already.”
“I've been looking around at a few apartments, man. There are some places downtown with some pretty good prices and I've been thinking about moving out there.”
“Yeah, like your going to get a place with no job. Fucking moron.” James' voice sounded exasperated.
“Why don't you get a job? You're sixteen now. You can work. You're too lame even to wash dishes at Jamie's Steak House. You'll just write rip off stories for the rest of your life and never get laid,” Corey said, unaware that he would die, both a nineteen year old virgin and begging for his life on his knees.
“I like James' stories,” Sarah said from the doorway in an indignant voice of which only a ten year old girl seems to be capable. Sarah was the youngest of the Matheson children.
James got up from his chair, beaming at Sarah (his favorite sibling by far) and walked toward her, thankful for the interruption. “Thanks, Sarah. Give me five,” he said, putting out his hand.
She slapped it with her own small hand and smiled, where a few adult teeth were beginning to show themselves. Her blue eyes sparkled with delight at her brother's companionship. Her black hair was chest length and freshly washed. She wore the nightgown of a little girl who wants to show how much she is growing up.
“Don't you think it's about time to go to bed?” he asked. Since his father died, James had been the one to take on the role of “man of the house”, a position which should have gone to Corey had he been mature enough to take on the responsibilities.
That was when an interruption came that no one had been expecting. A triple knock came at the door, brisk, firm, and loud. The three of them jumped, heads snapping toward the sound. James' heart jumped into his throat and pounded there, his mind already racing with what monsters could be requesting entry into their dwelling.
“What the fuck,” Corey said, his bushy eyebrows coming together in the middle of his forehead. “It's almost ten o' clock.”
James' mind had stopped racing with fantastical musings of what could be at their door and had settled on a more logical, probable answer. “It's probably Samantha's boyfriend,” he said with obvious disdain in his voice.
Sarah turned from him and began to pelt down the stairs to the door (she liked Samantha's boyfriend as she seemed to like everyone), not quite reaching it before her mother. James and Corey walked out of the room behind her and stood at the top of the stairs looking down at the front door. Slipknot continued in James' room.
2
Samantha was the only one in the family who had seen the man coming toward the house as she was looking out her bedroom window with it's black curtains parted to let in the moonlight when the stranger showed up. She had the room in the back corner of the house, the upstairs bathroom standing between her room and James'. The man had walked (no, walked wasn't the right word, she thought. He had seemed to glide) through the cool night air toward the back of the house. She had been thinking about her boyfriend and wondering how to break up with him. Samantha was seventeen years old and easily one of the most beautiful girls at Shelton High School. Her long, dyed blond hair, her long slender legs, thin hourglass figure, and large (for a seventeen year old) bust made her highly sought after, and she loved the attention it gained her.
She was coming to realize, however, that she enjoyed that attention too much. After the death of her father, Samantha, unknowingly had a crisis in which she sought desperately to replace the man. She had dated steadily in middle school and seemed to go through a boyfriend every couple months, rarely remaining single. When she lost her virginity at the age of sixteen, she had undergone another sort of crisis, during which, she wanted sex more often than is normal for a teenage girl.
She would tell him tomorrow, she thought. She couldn't keep going on lying; he had to know. Jimmy was a good person though, and it would be horribly difficult and, at the same time, somewhat relieving to finally get this off her chest. He was smart, funny, charming, and he certainly had his head on straight. She liked him a lot (even told him that she loved him) and she felt terrible about cheating on him. But dear god, was he terrible in bed. Steve made her feel like a woman while Jimmy made her feel like a teenager (which she did not like to admit she was); in the bedroom anyway. Outside of the bedroom, Steve didn't have a brain in his head and probably would never amount to anything. Samantha was seventeen though. She had plenty of time to worry about settling down with someone who was going somewhere in life. She would tell him everything, she decided. And that was when she noticed the man, walking toward her house.
She put down the Cosmopolitan she had been looking at (but not reading) and watched him approach. She immediately noted the fluid manner in which he walked. He had a certain sophistication about him, which she admired and she hoped that he was coming here to rent the extra room. It was always in the paper that they had the extra room for rent. It only cost them forty dollars a week to keep the ad running and they often made two or three hundred off it each week. As he approached the back of the house, he looked up at her and for a moment she was frightened. Something about his eyes was strange. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. She almost could, and then it was gone. The man smiled at her and she noticed that his lips were a blood red that made her heart flutter with desire for him. Jesus, she thought. I never should have given up my virginity. I'm becoming a slut. The man removed his hat (a black fedora), placed it on his chest, and gave her a little bow, never even breaking his stride.
Other than the fedora, the man was wearing a black suit with a blood red tie that almost perfectly matched his lips and a white work shirt. His shoes shined in the bright summer moonlight and he wore black socks (or so she supposed; she was sure she would be able to see them from here if they had been white) and black slacks. She saw that he had extremely long, shining, and beautiful black hair which flowed to the middle of his back.
She gave him a little wave back and a smirk he probably couldn't see from his vantage point and she watched him make his way to the back of the house. She got up from the bed and moved closer to the window so she could watch him as he moved around to the side of the house, either headed for the street or their front door. She walked around her bed and turned off her CD player, cutting off Lady Ga Ga in mid sentence and opened the door. She stood there for a minute waiting and, just as she was about to close it again, the rapid triple knock came at the door. Delighted, she walked down the hallway, past her brothers and followed her sister down the stairs to greet the stranger.
3
Marie Matheson was cleaning the kitchen and thinking of her late husband when the knock came at the front door. She had inherited this house as well as a large sum of money from the man to whom she had been married for twenty years. They had met in high school in 1988 and they had hit it off right away. Her mother had liked him from the start and her father had taken some convincing, as all fathers seemed to need. But it had not taken him long to come to like Mark (as much as any father could, considering the boy in question was banging his daughter) and it had taken Marie even less time to fall deeply in love with him. They had married at a small church in Shelton and she had given him his first son at the age of nineteen. Soon after she birthed their first daughter, they had acquired this house. Mark's ambitions had been great, but his determination had been greater. He had inherited money from his father (not much, but enough) and had invested it wisely in real estate, which he sold with what seemed like supernatural ease.
Mark may have been a genius when it came to real estate speculation but he wasn't too savvy when it came to keeping himself in good health. When she married him at the age of eighteen, he had been smoking a pack a day, but by the time he died of heart disease, he was putting away two packs a day. They didn't call them cowboy killers for nothing. She had loved him unconditionally until they put him in the ground five years ago; their youngest daughter, Sarah, having only been with them for five years then. He had invested his retirement money as wisely as he had invested in real estate, and she would be able to live for the rest of her life with it as long as she spent it sparingly and wisely. The house had been paid off when he died and the extra bedroom that they had been planning to fill with one more child had to go to some sort of use.
She began renting it out to strangers, mostly train hoppers who paid what they could. They would hop the train on it's way to or from El Paso and come to her house asking for a place to stay. The going rate on her room was fifty dollars a night and she included dinner as well as breakfast in that price. She would take their fifty dollars, fill them up, let them sleep, fill them up again, and send them on their way. If they didn't have much money and the room wasn't taken up for the night she would sometimes let them stay anyway, as long as she was in a good mood when they got there and as long as they showed some good manners. On this particular night, she was expecting the room to remain empty, as usually the train hoppers came in around eight o' clock and the ones who were passing through came in a little earlier. It was almost ten o' clock and she was about to go upstairs and coax Sarah into going downstairs to bed when the knock came at the door.
Who the hell... she thought, walking briskly to the door. Sarah was running down the stairs to the door with the apparent intention of opening it. As Marie reached the door and put her right hand on the knob, she put out her left hand in a “stop” gesture to stay her daughter's momentum. The girl stopped abruptly and looked at her with anticipation and glee in her eyes. Marie wasn't so quick to be happy about receiving such a late call and was more apprehensive and slightly angered than curious. She put her eye to the peep hole and got her first glimpse of the man who would ruin her family in one night.
She opened the door and the light from the living room showed her a man who was beautiful and dark at the same time. His skin was pale and his cheeks were gaunt, sunken in, as if he had not eaten in days. But his lips were a sensuous red and he had beautiful long black hair. His eyes were a penetrating green which reminded her of the husband she still loved deeply. Those eyes were almost hypnotizing. He was well dressed, as if he had just finished a business meeting. He was holding his black fedora in his right hand against his chest and he gave her a funny little bow almost like a china-man greeting a friend.
“Are you Mrs. Marie Matheson?” he asked. She could not place his accent. It was strange and he was obviously not from Texas, or anywhere near Texas for that matter.
“Y-yes, I am. Can I help you?”
“I deeply apologize for calling on you and your beautiful family at such a late hour,” he said, indicating the children staring at him from behind her. “But I am in town for one night. I am only passing through, you see, and I had hoped to rent a room. I have heard that you have one available.”
“Look,” she said, still apprehensive despite her immediate liking of this man. “I normally don't-”
“I understand and I assure you that I will pay more than twice the normal cost of your room. I also assure you that I will be gone before the sun shows its first light.”
“Normally, I would assume you are a man of your word, sir, but under these circumstances-”
“Of course,” he said, removing a battered wallet from his back pocket. “I hope I have not offended you with my assumptions that you would take in a stranger at such an hour, but I greatly appreciate your hospitality.” He handed her six twenty dollar bills. That was enough for her. But she still did not let him in yet. He stood just outside the threshold of her door, smiling at her with teeth that were perfectly white and perfectly set.
“You've already missed dinner, but I can still offer you breakfast in the morning if you would like, Mr...”
“My apologies,” he said, bowing once more. “My name is Sandulescu. Demetrius Sandulescu.” He took her left hand in his right and kissed it like a suitor asking for a dance. “I will be unable to join you for breakfast. I have dined already, and I need nothing more than a place to rest tonight. Thank you for your kind offer and I will sorely miss your morning company, but I will be gone before then.”
Marie watched him for a while longer as he stood outside. “May I,” he asked, beckoning toward the living room with his left hand, still holding her hand in his right.
“Yes, of course,” she said, taking her hand away and stepping aside to let him come in.
Demetrius Sandulescu stepped over the threshold of the Matheson doorway and closed the door behind him.
4
Sarah watched this conversation take place with rapt amazement. She saw a nice looking man, whose brown eyes reminded her of her kindergarten teacher, whom she had adored five years before. He had been wonderfully supportive of her when her father died and took every possible chance to accommodate her needs in the classroom. The man spoke in a strange manner which she had never heard before. She liked his lovely black hair and hoped that hers would be like that when she got older. Overall, she liked the man, but there was something about his teeth and his hands that slightly unnerved her. He had these odd, fingers that were all the same length (if the thumb is not counted) and the fingernails were extraordinarily long; about an inch off the tip of each finger. She had never seen anyone with fingers that were all the same length before. His teeth were stunningly white and straight but there was something strange about them that she couldn't quite wrap her head around. Surely, it was nothing, but she wondered.
She was still staring at the man, Demetrius, he had said, when her mother had turned around to face them all. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was a little disheveled when she looked at them, her eyes far off as if she were in some kind of trance and Sarah was afraid for her. Then her eyes seemed to clear and she she seemed to come back to herself.
“Well, what are you all staring at?” she asked incredulously. “Sarah, it's time for bed. The rest of you, go to your own rooms and mind your own damn business. Don't stay up to late James, Samantha.” She nodded her head at each of them in turn. “The two of you have school in the morning.”
5
James was in his room on his bed, but he was not sleeping. His light was still on and the CD player had changed disks; Metallica's hard, driving riffs lost most of their momentous power with the volume at such a low level. James was not thinking about Metallica though, or even paying attention to them. He was thinking about Demetrius (if that was his real name) and not in the way anyone else in the house probably was.
James had read Bram Stoker's Dracula and Stephen King's Salem's Lot. He has seen the movies for both as well (which sucked harder than a vacuum cleaner compared to the epic novels) and he knew a vampire when he saw one. He had read enough vampire folklore to write his own novel about them, had even been thinking about it (it was probably something to work on when he got older and more skilled in his craft).
Sandulescu could not have made himself more obvious to James. He had seen his eyes, but only for a moment before he looked away from them (One could quite easily be hypnotized by the eyes of a vampire) and he had seen them flash red before turning to the deep blue that reminded him of his mother. Of course he had long beautiful hair. Ann Rice gotten that part exactly right. The fingernails were long and the fingers themselves were all the same size. Well, that one he couldn't explain with vampire folklore, but still; it was suspicious. The man had been well dressed as vampires always tend to be, and oh, those teeth. They were suspicious too. He could imagine Sandulescu's canines growing long, hooking into fangs. He could see them dripping with blood, his blood.
He got up and began to pace the room. Sandulescu's lips were even suspicious. They were the deep blood red that he had always read about. And the worst part was his skin. It was so pale and his cheeks were so gaunt. He must be hungry, James thought. He is on a stop between cities. He's going to turn everyone into vampires in some town down the line like that guy, Barlow, in Salem's Lot. This was just a stop on his way to the next place. He would stay here tonight and he would feed.
Oh Christ, man. Get a grip, he told himself. You do this shit all the time. But this time it was different. This time it had to be real. Everything fit; everything he had read about, everything he had seen. It all fit.
He had to talk to someone about it. He couldn't talk to Mom; she would think he was crazy, making things up again, or both. She would tell him to go to bed and quit bothering her with such nonsense. Surely, she was probably asleep already. Samantha would probably tell him to get the fuck out of her room as soon as he came in. Sarah was too young. That left only Corey and his room was right next to the guest room. He would have to be quite. If the vampire heard him, he would know he suspected and he would come for him right away. But what else could he do?
He opened his bedroom door and looked out into the hallway. All the lights in the house were out except for his own bedroom lamp. It shown a soft yellow glow into the hallway, but it faded before reaching the end of the hall where Demetrius was hiding (definitely not sleeping) in the last room. Samantha's room was beside his own and the stairway was directly in front of him. Corey's room was right next to the top of the stairs and his door was closed like Samantha's and the guest room. With bare feet, James tiptoed to his brother's room as quietly as possible.
6
Corey had never heard something so ridiculous in his life. James came up with some pretty crazy shit and he wrote some great stories (although he would never have admitted this to James' face, even if it meant his life) but this was beyond anything Corey thought his brother could have managed. Demetrius, a vampire? James had once confided in him that he thought the guy who was renting the guest room one night looked like the serial killer who's picture had been on the news. They had been looking for the guy for weeks and, Corey had to admit, he kind of did look like him. But the guy had slept soundly and moved on the next day without much of a word to them. Now this. What the fuck was the little moron smoking and why wasn't he sharing? Corey had been laying in bed when James came barging through his door without knocking (not that Corey didn't do that to James all the time) and he had barely had enough time to put his dick away before he came up to the bed an sat down. He had dried off his hand as nonchalantly as he could and pretended to listen, enraptured while James unfolded the most retarded idea he had ever had (which, Corey thought, was saying something for sure).
Apparently, the guy who was staying in the room right next to his own was a vampire. Har-de-har-har! Friends and neighbors, we have a winner! James Matheson has officially lost every last marble in his head! The kid was whispering as if he were afraid the guy was going to hear him and come kill them both. Corey was pretty sure the guy was asleep as he could hear him snoring in there. Last he checked, vampires didn't sleep at night and he was also pretty sure they didn't snore when they did sleep. As James finished whispering in his barely audible voice, Corey merely looked at him for a moment.
He laughed in James' face then, not kindly and James suddenly clapped his hand over his mouth hard, damn near slapping him to stop the sound of his laughter. He kept his voice low but his eyes were wide and serious, his voice inexorably stern and angry.
“Shut the fuck up, you god damn moron!” he whispered. This normally would have had the effect of angering Corey to the point of beating the crap out of the little snot nosed brat. But he saw the look in his brother's eyes and what it instilled in him instead was a fear which he had never felt. His heart fluttered in his chest and his stomach was suddenly full of butteries. But he remained calm, cool, collected as he spoke to his brother like a father telling a child that the monster in the closet is not really there.
“Look man, I think you better just go to bed and forget about this.” He was whispering too, but he no longer seemed capable of raising his voice above a whisper, now that the gravity of the situation was laying in his chest. “I don't care what you think about this guy. You better leave him the fuck alone and get some sleep. You've got school in the morning and it's already almost midnight.”
James started to protest but Corey held up a hand. “I don't want to hear it. Go to bed, let me sleep, and leave the guy alone.”
Corey thought he would protest again but then his eyes seemed to gain a resignation that said he was finished arguing. He got up and left the room.
As the door closed behind him, Corey began to really think about what James had said. Sure, he was a creepy guy with his weird same-length fingers and long fingernails. His pale skin was a little strange but, hell, some people just seemed completely unable to tan and were doomed to walk this earth as losers who would never get a chick in the sack. Still, though, James seemed pretty convinced of this guy's likelihood of being a vampire.
Corey no longer felt like getting off. He rolled over on his left side and suddenly became very aware of how dark his room was. The shadows seemed to creep in on him and enclose him. The moon was on the other side of the house and minimal light shone through his window. He also noticed for the first time, that the snores from the other room had stopped. He thought about those snores and it seemed to him, in retrospect, that they were completely and utterly fake, like a man pretending to be asleep, a killer feigning a gimp leg. Don't let the little dweeb scare you man. Quite being ridiculous. Vampires don't exist and that's all there is to it. Don't get scared.
But he was. The dweeb had, in fact, scared the shit out of him. He was shivering under the warm blankets and the darkness of the room was not helping anything. Suddenly he wished his father were still alive. If he were here, this man wouldn't be in his house at all. Mom never would have started renting out the room right next to his. He was scared alright and sleep was a while coming. When it did come to him, it was for the last time.
7
She had invited him in. James had been standing there at the top of the stairs willing her to turn him away, to tell him no. A vampire couldn't just come right into your house and kill you. You had to invite it inside. You had to say, “Yes, of course,” and step aside to let him in, which was exactly what his ignorant mother had done. James did not mean that his mother was stupid. No, people often confused the definitions of stupid and ignorant and it irritated James to no end. How was his mother suppose to know? She hadn't studied this since she was ten years old.
He had to stop resenting his mother for what she had done and think of something. Well, he couldn't just walk into the guy's room and stake him to death could he? Excuse me Mr. Sandulescu, could you just be still for a minute while I ram this stake through your heart? His father would have known what to do. Mark Matheson had been a good man and it had been from him that James had received his macabre interest in horror literature and movies. His father had been a horror buff himself. He and James would stay up late and watch horror films together; not just the new ones either. Although they watched Francis Ford Cappola's version of Dracula, which he had had the nerve to name Bram Stoker's Dracula, they had also watched the old black and white version with Bela Lugosi and they had watched Nosferatu together, trying to scare each other while the other was entranced in the movie.
Thinking of his father, James remembered that the man had been Catholic. His mother kept the crucifix in the kitchen, where she spent so much of her time. Sometimes she would take it out and hold it when she thought they wouldn't notice. She would hide it away as soon as one of them entered the room, pretending to be rattling around the kitchen while she wiped at her eyes. James had to have that crucifix. It was already twelve thirty and Demetrius could begin his work at any time. He would go downstairs and get it, bring it back up here, and hold it in bed, waiting for daylight. If Sandulescu never got up, great. But if he did, James would have protection and he would be ready to banish him from this house as soon as he made his move.
He got off the bed and turned off his CD player. Shut up for a minute Jimi, he thought, cutting Jimi Hendrix off in the middle of “Voodoo Chile”. He walked to the door and opened it slowly, trying not to make any noise. Of course, doors only seem to creak open while your trying to sneak out of your room quietly at night and his door was no exception, screaming in protest against being opened. He had turned off his lamp twenty minutes ago and there was no longer anything but the moon to illuminate the hallway. It was now very dark and James could barely see more than five feet in front of him. He wondered if he was alone in this passage. Was Demetrius maybe standing right outside of his bedroom watching him? No, James thought. If he were back there he would have already come for me. He's biding his time, waiting for everyone to go to sleep. It's easier that way.
He began to creep down the stairs slowly, still trying to make as little noise as possible. Of course, the stairs screeched loudly under his steps. If they creaked in the day time, James did not notice it. During the day, one is too busy thinking their thoughts and going about their day to notice those noises they hear so clearly at night. Each stair was like a blast of thunder in James' ears. He heard a creak upstairs and looked behind him, back up the stairs. Demetrius was standing there with his arms outstretched, his mouth open in a snarl, his teeth now long and pointed, dripping blood.
Of course, there was no such thing at the top of the stairs. There was, in fact, nothing up there at all. James looked on for a moment longer, sure that it would come back, then finished his long trek down the stairs.
In the living room, the darkness pressed against him like a living thing. It seemed to breath around him, obscuring shapes and forging them into sinister objects. He thought he could hear something moving in here, as though, maybe, he wasn't alone in the room. Something was stalking him from the darkness; he could feel it. The moon was on the back of the house and it shined very little light into the living room. He walked with his arms out in front of him like a blind man, feeling his way around a familiar apartment where the furniture has been rearranged. He felt the entrance to the dining room in his left hand. To his right, another door led to a hallway which held the rooms of, both his sister, Sarah, and his mother, as well as a bathroom. He opened the door to the dining room.
The dining room had no windows and was not just dark. In comparison, the living room was an airport runway. The dining room held a darkness so thick, not even shapes could be made out. This was where he would meet his end then. On his way to retrieve his protection, Demetrius would come upon him silently here in the dark, enfold him in his arms and take him. Those arms would be strong and James would stand no chance of resisting. He would draw his neck close to his mouth and suck his blood until his veins were as dry as the desert which surrounded them.
Then he found the door that led to the kitchen and stepped through. The kitchen had windows on the side of the house that saw the setting of the sun set each day and the moon was shining brightly into it. He had to make this quick. He could feel time passing almost as if it were a physical thing. The kitchen was spacious with a large pantry and many drawers and cabinets for storage. An electric stove stood on the far side from the door to the dining room and a sitting table sat directly in front of him. He moved to the left and went to the drawers surrounding the stove, dishwasher, and sink. The one in which his mother kept the crucifix was full of other stuff, mostly junk and it took him a while to find it. He could feel the time slipping away. He rooted around in the drawer, picking up boxes of paper clips, pens, pencils, envelopes, spare change...
He could feel Demetrius behind him. He was walking toward him through the darkness of the dining room. James rooted faster, scattering crap all around the drawer. Demetrius was closing the distance. He was surely in the moonlit kitchen by now. James' hair was standing up on the back of his neck now, his body breaking out into a cool sweat. Goosebumps were breaking out over his arms. James didn't dare turn around, not without his crucifix, only looked faster, in a frenzy now. Finally his fingers closed on the crucifix just as Demetrius was reaching for his shoulder. James wheeled around, holding the crucifix in front of him, his lips peeled back in a sneer of triumph.
He brandished his crucifix at the sitting table. No one was there.
8
Demetrius was standing in the middle of the Matheson's guest bedroom, watching the moon and waiting for the members of this family to fall asleep. He did not do this because he had to. He could have overtaken all five of them, easily in the entrance of the house. He chose to take them in their sleep, simply because it was easier. All occupants of the household had now fallen into a deep sleep except for one who was roaming about the place, looking for some protection from him. The boy knew, but that was alright. While the boy slept, Demetrius would take him with ease, sucking his life's blood from his dying body until his veins collapsed and they shriveled up inside of him. He was not worried about the cross. He could look upon crosses all he liked, as long as they were not held by someone who believed with conviction in their power. Any religious object had this effect, not just crucifixes.
He did not plan to kill them all. He wanted the mother and the eldest sister. They would make powerful and wonderful companions. He would turn them, sleep here in the morning, hunt with his new friends, and then move on. He had no plans to stay in Shelton. Small towns are too quick to discover the nature of a vampire and he would be quickly driven out by the inhabitants.
Demetrius had not eaten in two days, not having a chance to take anyone last night as he had been traveling by train. He was more hungry than he had been in many years and he was beginning to feel impatient with the boy.
He sent his mind out to discover the state of the boy's own mind. It seemed as though the boy planned to remain awake all night, waiting for sunset, and hoping that Demetrius would not come to him. The boy was very afraid and that was not surprising considering what he suspected of the Matheson's guest. Now he sent another power to the boy, pushing him gently toward sleep. At first, the boy resisted, getting up and pacing the room. Demetrius pushed harder, forcing the boy to go back to his bed. He stood patiently, telling the boy to go to sleep for twenty minutes and, finally, the boy relented, falling into sleep like a dehydrated man falling into a stream of water. Everyone in the house slept now.
Demetrius smiled. He enjoyed playing with his victims before he took them helplessly into his arms and sank his teeth into their necks or their wrists. He had amazing power over women who were irresistibly attracted to him sexually. This did not mean that Demetrius had sex with the women he killed. But he often made them think that he planned to do exactly that, kissing them gently and gaining their trust more thoroughly before killing them. Demetrius changed forms now, becoming a smoke and moving under the door of the guest bedroom, wanting to make as little noise as he possibly could.
9
Marie Matheson lay in bed for an hour, as she often did since the death of her husband, before sleep finally came to her. She fought the depression well, keeping herself busy with the kids, with the house, with the spare bedroom. But at night, when the house was quiet and she was left alone with nothing but her thoughts, it would sometimes creep in on her like an old friend. Hello Marie, I sure did miss you. How are the kids?
And that was a good question wasn't it? She did her best to continue raising them as a single mother but she couldn't help but wonder if their father would approve of the way she was running this house without him. Samantha was a good girl and she had a good heart, but she didn't think that Mark would like any of the boys she had brought home. And she sure did seem to go through them quickly too. James was such a smart boy and she was sure that he would get one of those stories of his published some day. She could imagine her husband beaming at him as he handed his son the first acceptance letter from one of the magazines to which he was so often sending his manuscripts. She often wondered what to do about Corey, who seemed to be about as lazy as his Uncle Tommy except that Corey had not yet discovered the bottle as Tommy had. She pestered him every day to get off his lazy ass and get a job. He wasn't even in college. If he had been, it would have been alright that he didn't have a job and still lived with his mother. The death of his father had obviously impacted him in a harsh way and she tried not to be too hard on him. He wasn't the same as he once was.
Was it time to move on, she wondered. The man has been dead now for five years and she was not getting any younger. At thirty nine years old, she still had a few months left before she passed the forty mark. She felt in her heart that it was time to move on and begin dating again, but she was so worried about the kids. How would they react? They seemed to have moved on and accepted the fact of their father's death, but once a widow starts bringing a new man around, kids start acting funny, as if some one were invading their territory. With these thoughts on her mind, Marie drifted into sleep. She didn't notice a black mist, like a thick smoke, a living shadow slipping beneath the frame of her bedroom door around one thirty a few hours later. As Demetrius materialized out of that smoke, still clad in his suit, Marie slept on, dreaming of Mark. He began to whisper her name. He said it five times and she began to stir, moaning in her sleep, her hands roaming over her own body.
“Wake up Marie. Wake up and see me now as I really am.”
Marie's eyes opened and she saw the beautiful man with the long black hair once again. His hat was off, apparently left upstairs in the guest bedroom and his eyes were the most amazing shade of red. She had never seen such eyes before and they fascinated and enchanted her, unable to take her own eyes away from them. The rest of the room seemed to drain away and all she saw now were those eyes and that face. “Demetrius,” she said. “I thought you would come.”
“I'm here, Marie,” he whispered and walked (no, glided) toward her from the middle of the room. He came to the side of her bed and knelt beside her on one knee like a man proposing marriage. “You have known such loneliness, Marie.”
“Yes,” she said, staring at the red eyes.
“You are in a constant state of vexation.”
“Yes.”
“You are tired, worn out, almost used up at such a young and desirable age.”
“Yes,” she repeated. She was whispering it with reverence in her voice.
“I want to take that away, Marie. I want you to live a better life; a wondrous and exquisite life.”
“Yes.”
“Join me, Marie. Never again will you wonder if your husband is looking down on you, proud of the job you have done. Never again will you worry about growing old. Never again shall you know fear or want. You shall live life eternal. You will never know pain or doubt. You will be one of us, the finest creatures on the planet. Your beauty shall be enhanced tenfold. ”
“Yes, yes,” she said, reaching for him. He got up and leaned over the bed, kissing her lips. She was a fine woman at the age of thirty nine. She had lost the weight after each of her children and had remained in good shape, aging well.
Demetrius kissed her lips and his were cold, yet so sweet and wonderful on her own. Her pulse spiked, her heart beating fast now and skipping beats. After five years without a single kiss from a man, her body was starved. He kissed her, moving on to her neck and she moaned. She could feel his long teeth beneath his lips and another soft moan escaped her lips. She wanted him and she wanted the teeth that she could feel behind those lips. She wanted him to bite her more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. He moved onto the bed, on top of her and he was not heavy. He was actually extraordinarily light for a man who stood past six feet tall and was well built. She wrapped her legs around him, her nightdress lifting up passed her knees and her hips. His lips were on her breast now and she wanted him inside of her. She broke into a light sweat and it gleamed over her body in the moonlight as Demetrius' hands moved over her hot skin.
“Please,” she said, moving her hips against him. She dared not reach for his belt; she would let this man go at his own pace.
“Your death will be the sweetest part of your life,” Demetrius said and opened his mouth wide. She saw the long pointed teeth and felt her desire for him double.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, please.”
When Demetrius bit her neck, she felt a short moment of pain, a sting like a needle going through flesh, then it was gone. What replaced it was a sweetness which had never been matched in her life. No simile could describe the way it felt to her. His lips were now very warm, rather than cold and there was a pleasant tingling sensation in the area around them. It wasn't a bad tingle like what you get if you sit in the wrong position too long and your leg falls asleep. It was magnificent. There was a pleasant fire in her neck now, a warmth pulsing through her veins. She heard something like music, not with her ears, but in her head; the most wonderful music she had ever heard. She began to drift as her body was drained of life. He did not take all of her blood; merely the least he could take and still leave her dying. He left her with the smallest grasp on life, barely breathing, heart beating feebly. Before the darkness of unconsciousness enveloped her, she heard him say, “Death is, for you my love, only the beginning. You will awaken tomorrow night with new life.” Then the darkness took her completely and she knew no more.
The blood that now ran through her veins was laced with something which was beginning its work immediately but would not finish for many hours to come. In a sense, it was a disease, one which would give life rather than death. A disease that would give the curse of eternal life. She had welcomed it with open arms and Demetrius had been delighted to oblige.
10
She was beginning to fear that maybe she was a slut. She was immediately attracted to Demetrius and not in a “oh, he's good looking” sort of way, but with a powerful desire that she could not explain, even to herself. He was tall and he had the most gorgeous light blue eyes that seemed to remind her of her first high school boyfriend, Thomas, whom she had fallen deeply in love with (as much as a fifteen year old girl can fall in love anyway). He had stood there just inside the doorway and he had looked up at her standing beside her mother and smiled at her. There had been something in that smile, with those perfect white teeth. It was a knowing smile. It seemed to tell her that he knew perfectly well exactly what thoughts were passing through her mind. His eyes had seemed to hypnotize her for the short moment that he looked at her and in that moment it seemed that she could drown happily in those eyes.
While she wanted him deeply, she was also afraid of him and the desire she felt for him. She saw a certain power behind those eyes that she could not quite place and she found those perfectly white and straight teeth to be very peculiar.
It wasn't just Demetrius either. She was cheating on the first really good guy she had dated since Thomas. She had known such kindness from Jimmy and he was such a wonderful gentleman. But Steve, with whom she was cheating, was so passionate. Her time with Jimmy was so bland compared to the rockets that seemed to fly with Steve and she was ashamed of herself. She wondered what Jimmy would say when she told him. He would be heart broken, she was sure. It would be tough and she would hate herself, but it had to be done.
She lay naked in bed, hoping for the first time since her mother began renting the spare room, that the man who slept inside of it would come to her in bed. This was, by no means like anything she had ever felt before and it was a weight on her chest.
She fell easily into sleep and he came to her in her dreams. He made love to her with such passion that everything she had been worrying about was wiped from her mind. She focused only on him and his wonderful skin (which, in her dream was actually not pale) and he thrust inside of her deeply.
When he entered her room while she slept, she was writhing in her bed, caught in the dream. He materialized out of his smoke form directly beside her bed and whispered to her as he had whispered to her mother only twenty minutes before. Samantha didn't take as long to awaken as Marie had. One whisper was enough and her eyes flew open wide. He was standing beside her bed now and he was not pale anymore. The color that now filled his skin gave him a beauty she could never have imagined. He stood before her in his black suit and his red lips were parted slightly to reveal long, sharp teeth. His eyes were a penetrating red that held her gaze as soon as her own fell upon them.
She had kicked the bedspread off of her in her sleep and her slender body was exposed to Demetrius, something that half the boys at Shelton High School would have died to see. She did not feel exposed to this man. She felt at ease with herself, not self conscious in the least, and all thoughts of right or wrong were wiped away from her mind so completely, it was as if they had never been there at all.
“Come to me Demetrius.”
“You are aware of what you ask, Samantha?”
“Yes,” she said, and she was. She knew what he was now and she welcomed the thought of immortality. She would be forever beautiful, never age, never die. She would live with this marvelous man for all of eternity and they would make love with a passion that could never be matched by any mortal man.
Demetrius did not climb into the bed. He floated up and over her, looking down at her from a distance of a few feet. His hair did not fall from behind his shoulders but remained on his back. “I will give you what you want Samantha. You shall join us, the greatest creatures that have ever walked the earth, and you shall never parish,” he whispered to her.
“Yes,” she said, as her mother had before her. He came down to her and she spread her legs open for him as he rested on top of her, kissing her. Lips like a sweet dream. Hands on her breasts, on her stomach, on her thighs. Warm hands on her body. Lips on her neck, kissing softly. A soft moan escaped her lips. His tongue caressed her skin lightly, warm, sweet. Fangs sank into her neck. Pain for a moment. Trying to cry out now. No sound came out at all; only a quick exhalation. Her hands on the back of his neck, holding him to her own. A lover caught in excruciating passion. Dying now. She could feel it happening, welcomed it. This was the beginning, not the end. She drifted, the disease which coursed her mother's veins now running through her own, reshaping and revitalizing her, one cell at a time.
11
James fought sleep for as long as he could, holding his crucifix tightly in his right hand on his chest. Normally he listened to music while he waited for sleep but tonight he wanted complete silence and he wasn't trying to sleep anyway. He waited, hoping that Demetrius would not come out of the guest room, hoping beyond hope that he was wrong. He would lay awake all night, wait for sunrise and be relieved when the sun shone through his window and he knew that Demetrius was gone. But he wasn't just fighting sleep. It seemed as though sleep were fighting him, as though something was making him fall into it, become trapped by it. He fought it, getting up and pacing the room. But as he looked at his bed, it seemed so warm and comforting and he lay back again. He still tried to fight it laying in his bed, but he was not strong enough and he fell into a deep sleep as Demetrius began to roam his house, taking his first victim.
He awoke to the screaming of his brother. He heard it very clearly in his mind and he came up from sleep like a diver who realizes he has gone too deep and kicks frantically for the surface. He came up and his brother's screams were like nails on a chalkboard. He clutched for his crucifix and for a moment he was filled with panic as he searched the sheets for it. He laid his right hand on it and he felt a power jolt through his arm like an electric shock. He sat up in bed, eyes wide, heart beating frantically, stomach full of butterflies, head swimming in a whirlwind of thought.
Demetrius was taking his brother. Who else had Sandulescu taken tonight? He did not hear his older sister stirring in the next room and knew with the sense only a brother could know, that she was already dead. Should he check to make sure? Samantha and James' rooms were separated only by a bathroom and he would have to go passed Corey's room to get there. If he passed Corey's room, he felt sure that the vampire would come to him while he shook his dead sister, attempting to wake her. No, she was dead. He knew it in his very soul. He had to go downstairs to protect his mother and younger sister. He hesitated no longer, bolting from the bed and running down the stairs, not trying to be quiet now and his brother's screams stopped when James reached the living room. He was dead.
12
Corey awoke with a start and Demetrius was standing in his doorway, the door closed. He hadn't opened it. He had just slipped underneath it in a mist or smoke form. Of course. His brother had been right and Demetrius was here now to kill him. The vampire's eyes were glowing red in the dark and his long hair swam about his face like a shadow. His skin was no longer pale and he knew that the vampire had already visited other members of his family. Corey's bladder let go, soaking his boxer shorts. He began to scream and got up on the bed, trying to put as much distance between himself and Demetrius as possible. But he had nowhere to go. Demetrius was between him and the door and he was on the second floor. He thought briefly about just jumping through it, glass crashing down around him as he fell to the ground below, meeting his death by a more natural means than this thing had to offer. He couldn't bring himself to do it. His screams were not words like “no” or “please” but short, fast utterances of negation, tearing at his throat.
The vampire did not waist any more time. Demetrius came to him on the bed with a speed that was wondrous to behold. He was like an animal, a cheetah that needed no time to gain momentum before it reached top speed. Demetrius moved so fast Corey was barely able to see it and he reached the bed in less than a second. The first thing Demetrius did was not bite him but slash at his stomach with his sharp fingernails, spilling blood onto the bed in sheets.
“Stop that moronic blathering,” he growled, “and take your end like a man!”
He did not, though. He jumped from the bed and ran for the door. But the vampire's speed was unearthly and he was in front of him, between himself and the door again, in a flash. Corey's knees buckled and he fell down on them, begging for his life.
“Please don't!” he screamed. “please, I won't tell anyone! Please!”
Demetrius had heard enough. He didn't want this vile excuse for a man's blood to even touch his lips. He did not want to bite him.
Demetrius Sandulescu, who had been alive when Dracula was slaughtered in his own home, grabbed the vile thing before him and lifted him from his knees. He screamed again and Demetrius stopped the screams as he plunged his nails into his throat, severing the arteries there and squirting blood all over himself as well as the walls and the floor. He held on while the vile thing kicked, doing an air dance like a man hanging himself, until he moved no more. Demetrius cast the body aside, into a corner of the room like a rag doll, opened the door (no more need to sneak around) and walked out of the room without wiping the blood from his face.
13
James ran through the living room and chose the door set into the right side of the room this time, rather than the left. This door opened on a hallway where a guest bathroom was the first door and his sister's room was the next door. His mother's room was the last door in the hall and it was the largest room in the house. James would go to his sister's room first. While he was worried about his mother, logically, it made more sense to tend to Sarah first. He opened the door knowing in his heart that she would be laying still on her bed, dead as Samantha and Corey upstairs.
But she wasn't. She was sitting up in bed with her eyes wide, staring at him with such fright his heart broke for her a little. No time. He ran to her and scooped her up. She began to cry in his arms, something she used to do when she was younger, right after their father had died and she would climb the stairs to his room and sleep with him after a nightmare.
“Shh,” he said. “It's going to be OK Samantha. Don't worry, I'm going to protect you.”
“I heard the most awful screaming James! What was that?”
“Don't think about that right now, Samantha. I've got you now. You're going to be alright.”
“It was terrible,” she said and buried her face in his chest, moistening his shirt with her tears.
“Don't worry Sarah. It's OK.” He continued to sooth her as he walked to his mother's room. She was a light sleeper and as he approached her door he knew. If she hadn't awoken at the sound of Corey's screams she had already been taken. She was dead.
He opened the door and looked inside. She wasn't moving. He walked to her bed on stiff legs anyway, hoping he was wrong. He tried to set his sister down, but she clung to him.
“Sarah, I've got to check on mom. I need to put you down. Don't worry, I'll protect you,” he said, rubbing her hair with his hand. She allowed him to set her down and he looked down at his mother. There were two windows in her room and they let in enough moonlight for him to see her with more clarity than he ever would have wanted to.
She was not breathing. Her cheeks were not pale in death and blood had not pooled at the bottom of her body as it normally does in a corpse. She was lovely in death, her skin full of color and her hair was thicker, the gray gone.
He shook her, trying to wake her. She wouldn't move. Her right arm slipped from the bed and knocked on the hardwood floor. The finality of that sound wrenched James' heart from his chest and he screamed without words. Now his mother, father, and two older siblings were dead. His mother would not remain so, however. He could see that death was not the end for her and that broke his heart even more. A hand fell on his shoulder and he wheeled around.
He stared Demetrius Sandulescu directly in the face. He was covered in blood. It dripped from his teeth and his chin. It coated his long black hair. His eyes were red now, he saw and as he looked into them, his pain began to slip away from him. He welcomed it. Let it come then. He would be one of them. He would walk the earth forever, praying the night.
“NO!” he screamed and thrust the cross out in front of him, touching the vampire's left cheek with it. The skin sizzled beneath the crucifix like bacon on a grill and Demetrius screamed, grabbing James by the shirt with his right hand. His claws tore at his shirt and scratched his flesh drawing blood from his chest. The vampire threw him across the room with astonishing strength and he landed against the far wall with a crash. The front of his shirt was in tatters and covered in his own blood. He held the cross out in front of him, a symbol of good, and he could feel the immense power in it flooding his right arm. Demetrius backed up against the wall opposite him, knocking over a lamp and sending it crashing onto the floor. The power of the crucifix was washing down his arm in a wave and suddenly he felt it engulf his entire body. He advanced on the vampire as his sister ran toward him, getting behind him like a shield.
“Stand back in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! I command you!”
“Boy,” he said, “You have such strength in you. Such intelligence. You make a formidable enemy. But I assure you, you would make an even more powerful companion. The two of us could be great together, James. You could be so much more than you are now.”
James saw his eyes and was transfixed by them. A powerful ally, yes. He could see himself as a vampire, a beautiful, powerful being. He would take new victims each night, dining on their blood like fine wine. He would never die. It all made perfect sense.
He began to lower the cross and the vampire grinned at him. That grin was too much for James and with all the will he could summon, he looked away from the red eyes of the vampire.
He raised his cross again and felt that power surge through his arm once more. The vampire screamed in terrible pain and threw his arms out in front of him like a shield to block the sight of the cross. He changed forms, his cloths tearing from his body and falling to the floor in ruins, his skin darkening to a shade of brown, his body growing taller and his arms attaching themselves to his back with a long webbing that made a winglike structure. He morphed before Jame's eyes into a huge bat. The Demetrius thing screeched at him in an unspeakable cry that seemed to tear at his ear drums. It tried to step forward but could come no closer to him holding his cross in front of him.
“In the name of Christ, I command you to leave this house!” James screamed and his voice echoed around the room with tremendous force and power, as if the voice of God had filled his throat. “I revoke the invitation of entry my mother has given. On her behalf, as her next living relative, I revoke the invitation! Leave this place and never come back here again!” The vampire screamed and stepped forward, coming toward James and the cross burned in his hand with a white light that filled the room. The vampire backed away from him again, holding up his arms to shield his face.
“You live today,” screamed at him in it's terrible, inhuman voice. “I will come back for you! I have lived for centuries and I will not be bested by a mere boy!”
The vampire spread out his arm-like wings beside him like Christ on the cross and vanished into thin air. James kept his cross held out in front of him as if he still needed to ward him off. His sister suddenly burst into tears behind him and he turned to tend to her, never dropping the cross.
14
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked, timidly as James turned over the large kitchen table. It crashed on the hardwood dining room floors with a boom. The table was solid mahogany and its legs would serve his purpose perfectly. He needed only two of them. He had seen his brother not long after they had woken up and he was not going to rise up tonight. He had been fortunate.
“I need these table legs,” he said now. “I want you to do something for me.” He took her shoulders in his hands and squatted down to be eye level with her. He looked into them and spoke with conviction. “I need you to go outside and sit on the porch. Don't come inside, no matter what you hear.” She was shaking her head violently from side to side in a gesture of denial.
“Listen to me,” he said and his voice was hard now, cold. “They can't get you in the day time. He's not coming back. He's long gone, Sarah, and he can't get you now. Trust me. I'm your brother and I'm doing this to protect you. Don't come inside. You may hear terrible things, screams. It may sound like I'm in danger in here. No matter what happens, don't come inside. I'll come out when I'm finished.”
“I love you, James,” she said and the power of those words almost brought fresh tears to his eyes. He could feel them stinging just behind the lids. He held it back. He had done enough of that today. It was time to be strong. The work ahead would be the worst thing he would do in his life, but it had to be done. He could not live knowing that two of his family were feeding on the innocent night after night.
“I love you too, Sarah. Now, please, do as I say.”
She turned and began to walk away slowly with her head down. She stopped and turned around to look at him again. “Promise me,” she said.
“Promise you what, Sarah?”
“Please be careful. I don't know what I'll do without you, James. I'll be all alone.”
“I promise,” he assured her. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I'll see you in no more than two hours. I'll be out there for sure before nightfall.”
She nodded, satisfied. She walked across the living room and opened the front door, where Demetrius had stood the night before, asking to be let inside.
A long handled ax, a hatchet, his father's hammer, a cross, and a bundle of his mother's garlic from the pantry were laid out in a row beside him on the floor. He picked up the ax and began to hack legs off the kitchen table. The hatchet would make fine stakes out of these legs.
15
Marie Matheson woke up in the early hours of the morning with her skin burning. She couldn't understand what the problem possibly could have been at first. Then she realized that the sunlight was showing through the window and falling on her legs. The skin felt like it was on fire there. Her stomach hurt worse than it had when she got food poisoning nineteen years ago and her head felt like it was going to explode. She knew that she had changed. She saw the world differently now. Her room stood out clearly, the lines the walls made finely drawn, the colors of the comforter standing out with a brilliance that was astonishing. She could hear everything. A bird chirping outside was like a foghorn in her ears. The sound of her two remaining children breathing in the living room where they must be sleeping was clear to her.
But her legs! They were beginning to emit small amounts of steam now. She felt so sick, she was not sure she could get up to close her curtains, which were black and thick and would block out the sun nicely. Samantha had the same curtains in her room as well. She reached out for the curtains from the bed as if she could touch them from ten feet away and willed them closed. And they did close. She closed the curtains on the window that faced West first, then the ones that faced South.
Immediately she began to feel better. Her skin was cooling off now and her headache was beginning to subside a little. Her stomach still hurt but she was sure that this would fade by the time she woke tonight and she was sure that Demetrius would be in her bedroom, waiting for her when she did.
16
As James finished making the second of his two stakes, he thought about the irony of the situation. He would be using his father's hammer to kill his mother for one thing. Also, this table had been built by his father. On one of the legs that he chopped off the table, there was an inscription carved into it. It said M. MATHESON. While he hacked on that leg with his hatchet, he took extra care to make sure that the name was not lost. He would be killing his mother and his sister with legs from a table built by his father and a hammer which may have even helped to built the table.
His father, having died when James was eleven had never had the chance to teach him to shave or drive, had not been able to give him advice about relationships or love. He had not been there when James wrote his first short story or when he sent his first magazine submission. Now his mother had ruthlessly been taken from him and he would never know her love or comfort again, never feel her warm embrace or smell her perfume again. His mother and his sister were now vampires and he must be the one to kill them.
But was he really killing them? No, Demetrius had done that last night. He had crept into their rooms and taken them one after the other. No, he wasn't killing them; he was freeing them. Freeing them from a life in which they would be a slave to the blood they craved, like a drug addict looking for the next fix. And when he was finished, he would go to the police and he would confess to it all. A life sentence in prison was better than trying to be a fugitive with his ten year old sister. He would tell them how he had killed all three of them and then lost his nerve before he could do his sister too.
He got up and picked up his crucifix (and it was his crucifix now) and put it in his front pocket. He didn't know if he would need it, but it was best to be safe. Next he picked up the hammer and put the handle into his pocket; the head poked out over the top of his jeans. Then he picked up the ax and the garlic in one hand, dangling the sack of garlic from it's pull string, and the two stakes in the other. They were thick and heavy and he had to hold them against his stomach. He walked from the dining room into the living room. He turned left into his mother's hallway and to her bedroom, ax and garlic swinging at his side.
Inside her room, he noticed that at some point, she had actually gotten up out of bed and closed her thick black curtains. Very little light shone through the curtains, but it was enough for him to work by. He dropped the ax and the bag of garlic in the doorway, walked to the edge of her bed, and knelt beside her, letting the stakes tumble from his arms onto the floor. He picked up her right hand in his own and held it tightly. It was cold to the touch. God, what do you say to your mother before you drive a fucking stake through her heart? He couldn't find words. His mother had been a wonderful woman. She had run a strict household and she had done so well for them after the death of James' father. He could remember her singing to him at his bed when he was a child. Nothing you could say could take me away from my guy. Nothing you could do, cuz I'm stuck like glue to my guy. She would never do that again. Every time he heard that song from now on, he would probably cry like a baby. Tears slipped over his eyelids now and James Matheson sobbed, crying for his mother as well as his sister.
She was so beautiful in death. Death seemed to have given her back ten years of her life and all the struggles of raising four kids by herself for five years. Maybe I should just leave her alone, he though. Maybe she will be alright as a vampire. The thought in itself horrified him and he picked up the first stake. M. MATHESON.
He placed the steak over her breast with his left hand and grabbed the handle of the hammer out of his other pocket, laying it on the bed for the time being. He removed the cross from the same pocket and transferred it to his shirt pocket so that he could reach it easily in case he needed it. He picked up the hammer and brought it up over his head.
He hesitated.
“I love you mother,” he said.
James Matheson brought the hammer down on the stake with all the force his exhausted muscles could bring, driving it deep, not quite past all the cartilage and bone. What blood remained in her body shot from the wound in jets, gushing and splattering his face, soaking the bedspread, his tattered shirt and his arms. Her eyes opened wide and she screamed in an inhumane wail of agony as James drove the stake in further, now breaking the bone and piercing the heart. “James, no!” she screamed as the blood gushed out of her, splattering the walls. “Please, your killing me James!” She reached for him with her long fingernails which had become sharp, trying to scratch him.
He pulled the crucifix from his shirt with his left hand, the stake protruding from her chest of its own accord. He held the crucifix in front of her face, feeling that power surge through his arm once more and she hissed at him like an angry cat, laying back against the blood stained bed again. He kept the crucifix in front of her face with his left hand and she was screaming in agony, begging him to stop while he drove the stake in further.
He did not listen. He drove the stake in through her back with one final blow from the hammer as his mother's hand reached for him. It remained in the air for few seconds, dripping with her own blood, then it fell limp on the bed.
James was still crying for his mother. Even as he did what had to be done, he was weeping for her and he hated himself for what he had done. In that moment he wished the vampire had spared him this misery by tearing him apart as he had done his brother. He was covered in his mother's blood and there were two clean lines where the tears ran down. James did not hesitate once he began however. He picked up the ax. He had to finish the job.
James lifted the ax in both hands and, screaming wildly, swung it over his head. It swung in a wide arch and severed his mother's head cleanly. Little blood escaped the wound in her neck as most of it had either been drank by Demetrius or spilled all over him and the room. His mother's head fell off the bed onto the floor and he looked down into her staring eyes. He screamed then, lifting his face to the sky and wailing like a man dying, screaming at God or whoever could hear him. He had no more tears to cry for her and just screamed with the image of her dead glassy eyes, which stared at nothing imprinted on his mind. That image would remain with him forever. He sank to his knees before her head and stayed that way for some time, crying tearlessly.
Finally, he opened the sack full of garlic and got retrieved two cloves of it. He picked up his mother's head and she didn't look so good in death any more. She looked old and used up. Her skin was so cold in his hands. He stuffed the two cloves of garlic into her mouth, shoving them in as far as he could and placed her head back on the bed between her legs, as is custom in the killing of a vampire. He left the M. MATHESON stake in her chest. He looked up again, wondering if his father was looking down on him now, proud of his son for not flinching in the face of evil and fear. For setting his wife free to join him.
James put the handle of his hammer back in his pocket, picked up his remaining stake, and picked up his ax. He had to do it one more time before he could begin his new life as a prisoner and his sister could begin her new life as an orphan. He dreaded it as he had never dreaded anything before it.
17
James set his sister free in much the same way he had done so with his mother, crying tearlessly and hating himself. When he finally finished, he went into the kitchen and called the police. His voice was very dead, flat, and unreal to him in his own ears. He had told them his family was dead and that he had killed them himself. He said that he wanted to turn himself in and that he would be outside the house. They tried to keep him on the phone while the police were on their way but James had already hung up.
He went to the garage and found the gas can where he expected it to be, hanging on its hook among the other tools. It had plenty of gas in it and he started in the kitchen, splashing it over the sitting table, on the counters, on the floor and the walls. He made his way through the dining room, dowsing the ruined dinner table, which had room for six chairs but had only held six for the last five years. He moved into the hallway of his mother and sister's rooms now, splashing gasoline on the walls and floor. He did not actually go into those rooms. There was no need. He went back to the stairs and climbed them backward, pouring gas out in front of him as he went. He poured gas in his own room then went down the hall with the can, dowsing the carpet. Now the gas can was empty and he threw it down the stairs, crashing along the walls and coming to rest in front of the door.
He went into his room one final time and looked around at his books, his posters of bands and horror legends, his CDs, his manuscripts. It would all burn now. He went to his backpack and opened the front pocket, removing a pack of Marlboro cigarettes (look at me dad) and a Zippo lighter. He never smoked in the house as his mother would notice the smell right away. He could not imagine what she would do if she had found out.
He went downstairs languidly, as if in a dream and put a cigarette in his mouth. He opened the door and stepped out onto the front porch where his sister awaited him. A look of amazed disbelief was mixed with relief and distrust on her ten year old face.
“I'm still me,” he said, and she ran to him, hugging him tightly. “Come on,” he said, putting his left arm around her. He could hear the sirens, now coming through the desert from deep within Shelton. He flipped the top of the Zippo open and struck a flame. He lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply, then, turning his head back and walking forward onto the steps at the same time, flung the lighter into the house where it caught the gasoline on the floor with a
whomfph, the same as James' life had in a single night.
May 24, 2010
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Originally Posted by woodpryan
