by Matthew Fish
Children of the Pomme
By Matthew Fish
Chapter 1
There are three kinds of man that walk the Earth. The first kind is the mortals, birthed by the Goddess Damara, who live fleeting but beautiful lives. The second kind is the Children of the Pomme—hewn from the apple tree by the God Abelio. They live vastly long lives, having found ancient gateways that allow them to possess near-eternal life. Finally, there are the Children of Cernunnos, brought to life by the god of the hunt. Their kind is the most ancient and rare. Not much is known about the third race these days—they are all but forgotten, lost to legend and time. Among Mortals, not much is known about the second race. However, the Children of the Pomme know all too well about Mortals as, for better or worse, their lives often intertwine.
*
I’d always just been a pretty ordinary guy with a slight sarcastic view of everything. At least, that is how I had felt about my life. I was eighteen…in what was supposed to be that summer of freedom between high school and college, not exactly sure if I wanted it to be just a summer and not something longer. High school was alright, as far as high school experiences go. I was not bullied nor was I particularly popular. I suppose, I was unremarkable…which is somewhat fitting as my name was (and still is) Mark, unremarkable Mark, or Mark J. Argent if we want to go the traditional route. I was a skinny, sometimes clumsy, meat bag. I had dark brown hair, a well defined youthful face with a sharp nose and light blue eyes. At least that is what I would have written if I was filling out a dating profile. Although, I could have used more dates in high school, that would have been nice. Sorry, sometimes I get a bit off the topic…which reminds me, I did once manage to finger this cute girl named Allison Laurel my junior year for about ten minutes before her parents came home early. I was never allowed back because of my inability to properly hide a full-tent erection as her father entered the room, that and probably because my hand was up her skirt. She wasn’t wearing panties that day. Anyway, getting back to the point here, my father just recently died. (Nice lead in, I know, right?) He was a detective with the Chicago Police Department. He got into a bad situation during an in investigation and…well…that’s that—so to say. I honestly…Don’t know much about the circumstances. My mother died when I was about…six—I think. So aside from the deaths, like I said, I’d always just been a pretty ordinary young guy. I lived with my grandmother in a small one story house. I’d been there just six weeks while my grandmother was attempting to figure when and how to handle passing over my father’s house and belongings once I could handle the responsibilities. The therapist that I’d been seeing kept saying that it hadn’t hit me yet—my father’s death…that I’d start feeling really sad soon. I kept waiting for it like it was some kind of big event, but at the same time I tried to keep my mind off of it…if that makes any sense at all. I don’t have a job as of yet. I figured I would get one. That was, of course, contingent on if I survived this home invasion. I suppose that is how it is with break-ins, you wake up one morning glad that you went to sleep in boxers and a t-shirt and you’re met in the kitchen by a strange girl. Half asleep, you almost don’t notice her—almost. At least that was how my first home invasion went. The girl was wearing a black pea coat resting upon a white silky shirt paired with a short black skirt. She had long, straight pink (probably dyed) hair, her large hazel eyes were with besieged with black eyeliner. She had a cute little button nose and a pretty face. I mention all of this because she was definitely cute as hell, even if she looked rather pissed. Aside from feeling underdressed, I felt a rather large bit of fear creeping over me as she slammed her fist upon the kitchen table. For a moment I swore I saw a little crack form upon the surface. However, my attention was quickly returned to that oddly adorable, angry face.
“What does my father want with you?” The girl demanded.
“Who is your father?” Mark asked as he placed his hands out in some gesture that would appear to say ‘I’m harmless, please don’t murder me.’
“Cut the shit,” the girl continued as she slammed her balled fist down once more against the innocent wooden kitchen table. “Why is my father so obsessed with you?”
“I’m sorry….” Mark pleaded as he continued to keep his hands out as though showing her this gesture would mean fuck all. “I think that there has been some kind of terrible mistake. I’m really nobody…just Mark…unremarkable Mark.”
“I’ll fucking burn you, do you think this is a good time for jokes?”
“No…of course not,” Mark said as he began to slowly back away. “It’s just, I joke…terrible jokes usually. Sorry, but I don’t know you…or your father. I’m sorry if he’s obsessed with me, which sounds like some kind of family issue that I am unaware of.”
“I’m a fucking vampire, asshole,” the girl said as she reached over to the stovetop and with a click, ignited the range. “If you don’t want to go about this the easy way…”
“I think there’s a difference between a vampire and just being emo…” Mark spoke as he began to internally question the girl’s mental stability. “Grandma doesn’t like it when people use the stove when she’s not here. Something about the gas bill…so why don’t we just talk about this and…”
“Eat this!” The girl shouted as a ball of flame spurted forth from the range, missing Mark by just a few inches and singeing off the tiny hairs on his right arm.
“What the actual fuck?” Mark exclaimed as he jumped back and attempted to run down the hallway. He managed to make it back to his bedroom before another large ball of flame engulfed his room.
“What does my father want with you!?”
“Seriously…!” Mark shouted as he turned and pressed himself against the wall. He squealed like a pig being run over by a lawnmower as he noticed the entire kitchen engulfed in flames. “I don’t know! I don’t know anything!”
“Come with me, now!” The girl demanded as she reached out for Mark and looked somewhat worried at the destruction she had caused.
“Not going to happen!” Mark shouted as he ran past the girl and cowered in a corner by the front door.
“Hnnnng!” The girl grunted as she stomped her black boots against the floor as the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. “This isn’t over, dickwad!”
“I’m sorry!” Mark shouted. He really did not know why he was apologizing. After all, she did just call him a dickwad…and she burned his grandmother’s house down. “I’m not a dickwad!”
“Dickwad….!” The girl retorted loudly as she disappeared in a puff of smoke.
After a brief bit of disbelief quickly followed by a fantastically large fear of burning alive, firefighters breached the front door and carried me out to safety. (Honestly, there is nothing more demeaning than being carried out by a strong, burly man in uniform while I am dressed in boxers as the entire neighborhood looks on. At least they were all elderly. Actually, I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.) My encounter with the strange girl left me confused as I sat upon the edge of the sidewalk, behind me the firefighters attended to the roaring blaze. It did not take them that long…after all, like I had said—it was a small place. However, what remained was nothing more than a burned out rubble pile of smoldering ember with the smell of burnt wood filling the late morning air.
A firefighter came over and covered me with a tiny grey blanket, a small gesture of kindness as the crowd grew larger and larger with each passing moment. I sat there thinking that, in a way I was kinda lucky…most of my shit was still at my father’s old house. However, my grandmother was going to be pissed. She was always very particular about things being neat and tidy. At that moment, her house was neither neat nor tidy…at least,
not in the traditional sense. In nature, fire could be considered a cleansing act. New forests grow upon the ashes of old ones. It is just too bad that new houses don’t grow like trees. I felt bad for not thinking more seriously regarding the situation at hand. Part of me expected to awaken from this moment as though it was nothing more than a mere dream. After all, a cute girl had just hurled fire at me…that’s not really something you see every day, or any day? As more time passed, a sleek black Charger pulled up onto the curb beside me. A man in one of those typical detective black suit style outfits stepped out of the vehicle and headed in my direction. He had dark skin and slicked black hair. He was a larger, muscular man with silver rimmed sunglasses and well manicured facial hair. I had seen him around a few times before, although we never really talked…at least, not that I could remember.
“Mark,” the man spoke as he extended a hand out and easily lifted the teen up off the ground. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, kinda,” Mark replied as he shrugged. “House burned down and all that, but yeah, alright.”
“You remember me…?”
“You were my father’s partner,” Mark said as he nodded. That, however, was about all he knew about the man. Mark saw him a few times. The last, being his father’s funeral. He remembered that he had simply approached Mark and said all of five words, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Then, he turned and walked away. Mark thought it was rather odd that he was here now given the general absence from Mark’s life.
“Your grandma safe…?”
“She’s playing bridge with her other old people friends,” Mark said as he allowed himself to be led into the passenger seat of the car. He looked back once at the ruin of her former home. “She’s not going to be happy.”
“I’ll make sure she’s briefed on what’s happened and let her know that you’re safe,” the man said as he opened up the door. “On that note, let’s get you somewhere safe.”
“Are we headed to the police station?” Mark asked. He would rather appreciate a change of clothes first.
“Nah,” the man said as he shook his head and threw the Charger into drive. “Your father’s old place…”
“My old place…” Mark added. “You know…I don’t exactly remember your name.”
“Bradley…Bradley Christian.”
“Thanks,” Mark said as he shrugged. The name sounded vaguely familiar. “My dad really never talked about work…so, yeah.”
“Understandable,” Bradley said as he navigated through a busy intersection, with relative ease as he slipped past car after car.
“Do you always drive like this?” Mark asked as he clutched the bottom of the seat as the car jarred to the right nearly causing him to lose his balance.
“Only when I can get away with it,” Bradley said with a hearty, short chuckle and a toothy smile. “People see this beautiful intimidating beast and are more than happy to get the fuck out of my way.”
“How morally responsible of you…”
“So,” Bradley began, ignoring Mark’s bit of sarcasm. “We’ve got about twenty minutes ‘till we get to your house—let’s talk about what happened.”
“You wouldn’t believe me.” Mark said as he wrapped his arms around his chest and gazed mindlessly out the window. “I wouldn’t believe me,” he muttered.
“Try me,” Bradley said as he recklessly brought the car to a dead stop a mere few inches away from the ass-end of a large bus. “Do you know what started it? Was it some kind of accident? Give me something to go off of here…”
“Depends on if your definition of accident is a psychotic girl who can shoot fire straight from the oven at you…”
“There was someone in the house? Someone you didn’t know?”
“Yeah…psychotic girl who could shoot fire at me…” Mark reiterated. It seemed to Mark that this part of the events that had transpired should be the most important. He had expected it to cause, at the least, a moderate conversation pause. “Definitely didn’t know her. Don’t know anyone like that.”
“So…this girl,” Bradley continued without skipping a beat. The car lurched forward as the tires squealed a bit upon the pavement. “She definitely burned the house down?”
“Yes,” Mark said plainly. “You can turn the car around and take me to the psych ward now…but, yes—there was a girl…she was angry and she burned the house down with fire that she somehow controlled.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Ahh…” Mark began as he thought back to the moment. It all seemed rather rushed and…violent once the fire got introduced. “She wanted to know why her father was interested in me….said she was a vampire. I kept telling her I had no idea…she got angry and started tossing fire around…attempted to abduct me and then finally, called me a dickwad before disappearing.”
“A vampire…?” Bradley asked as he shook his head.
“I know, sounds crazy,” Mark said as he let out a heavy sigh and threw his hands up. “If I had accidentally burned the place down, I’d at least attempt to come up with something else.”
“No it’s just…vampire,” Bradley said as he let out a short laugh. “It’s a trendy thing with the younger ones these days…how old do you think she was?”
“Uhh…probably my age, I’d guess…” Mark answered, confused. “So is this a thing? People going around calling themselves vampires and burning houses down…I mean—you don’t really seem all that surprised.”
“How do you feel about coins?”
“What?” Mark asked as he grew even more discombobulated by the sudden change of the topic at hand. “I mean…what?”
“You know, coins…change…how does it feel to you to hold onto something like a quarter?” Bradley asked.
“Kinda germy…?” Mark answered in a questioning tone. “I’m not particularly fond of coins. Aren’t they all covered in a small amount of feces and like…drugs and semen? My dad though, yeah…he had about a billion coins.”
“You never…attempted to do anything strange with a quarter?”
“Like what?” Mark asked, his head was beginning to hurt from thinking about all these seemingly random questions.
“Pity…I guess it don’t matter much,” Bradley said as he pulled up to the old house. “We are going to have to have a conversation though.”
“Fine,” Mark said as he climbed out of the car. He was happy to be back at his old home. “I’m getting dressed first though.”
As I entered the house I was hit with that familiar smell…a kind of woodsy smell that filled my nostrils and reminded me that I was home. It always smelled like this in the summertime. I always loved the old feel of the house—the wooden walls and exposed beams against the white oatmeal ceilings. Things there were pretty much just as I remembered…of course my father wasn’t there—but, yeah…that’s to be expected isn’t it? I entered the living room and my bare feet hit the cool wooden floor. I tossed the blanket that still smelled heavily of smoke upon a chair at the kitchen table. I ran up the stairs to my old room. Bradley stayed downstairs. I had a sense that he felt rather nervous for some reason. As I looked down the stairway, I could see him peeking out the curtain as though he was on the watch for some unknown danger…at least unknown to me. I rummaged through my old clothing drawer and found a comfortable pair of blue jeans and a grey t-shirt with a colorful beach design of some orange palm trees and a large sunset. I changed and gave the room one more look—I remember thinking, I felt much more comfortable here…maybe now that grandma’s house is pile of smoldering rubble we can live here instead. At least, it would have returned some amount of familiarity to my life. I made my way back down the stairs and sat upon a chair at the old dining table. I intertwined my fingers together and placed them upon the surface. I waited as Bradley checked around the house a bit more.
“Expecting something?” Mark asked as he watched the detective make his way around the house searching out every nook and cranny.
“Just being safe,” Bradley rep
lied as he nodded to himself. He appeared confident that he had done a sufficient job of checking the perimeter for any potential threats. “Don’t want a repeat of this morning.”
“About that…” Mark began as he kept his hands balled up upon the table and began to nervously bump it against the wooden surface producing a dull series of thumps. “So…all in a day’s work for you…?”
“Truthfully, yeah,” Bradley said as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a quarter and rolled it over to Mark. As it approached, the coin began to spiral down until it lay flat against the table heads side up. He then sat across the table and looked intently at Mark for any kind of reaction.
“Fuck yeah,” Mark said as he picked up the quarter and placed it in his palm. “My money troubles are over…to think I was going to get a job this summer…maybe even save up for college or a new car. I’m not sure which I wanted. Now we won’t have to sell the house to get both.”
“Your father said you were a bit of a sarcastic little shit.”
“Did he say that?” Mark said as he placed the quarter on the table, flicked it with forefinger, and watched it spin. “Funny, he never said anything about you…but, yeah, thanks for that. Good to know.”
“He said a lot of good things about you as well,” Bradley added with a fair amount of guilt to his usually gruffish tone. “I just wanted to see if you had the same…skill that he had.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Mark said as he allowed the quarter to fall flat against the table once more. “I don’t have any skills. I’m sure even my father knew that…but really, what does this have to do with what happened earlier? I mean, I tell you a girl who called herself a vampire burned my grandmother’s house down and you seem…well…like that’s perfectly normal. You’re honestly, kinda freaking me out with this quarter bullshit—just…yeah, what’s going on? Am I in some kind of trouble?”
Yeah, about that,” Bradley began as he filled his lungs with air and let out a hefty sigh. “The girl…she wasn’t completely lying about the vampire thing. At least, from what you’ve told me—although she’s not really a vampire. They don’t exist, never really have. It’s something that our people had invented.
