by Stefania Gil
She also drank it, within a few hours, her children fell into the deep sleep of eternal life, and she then understood it was too late for her.
She cried as much as her tired body allowed her. She resisted for two days before succumbing to the pre-death state, because she had to make sure her children would be okay.
Juan Carlos was the first to wake up after sleeping for two days and two nights, as did his brother.
The infusion of eternal life was working for them.
When he woke, the first thing he saw was his mother lying on her bed. Rocio’s body burned with fever and her mind would not last much longer.
He rushed to her side. She took his hand and kissed the back of it.
“The herbal tea worked,” said Rocío with a weary thread. Nothing can kill you. You must leave here as soon as possible, or else the inquisitors will come for you. "Juan Carlos squeezed her hand.
“Mother, you're delirious, we've only slept at night. As usual. And soon, "he sighed," we will fall ill too. Just like you.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t forget the legend, Juan Carlos,” she whispered, “Please do not forget it.”
At the moment, Juan Carlos didn’t have time to remember that legend. He had to do something to save his mother's life.
He got up and went looking for help. A doctor perhaps, although he knew that no one wanted to approach the plague sufferers. Not even the doctors.
Everyone was afraid of dying.
Spain had fallen into total misfortune.
The plague was destroying the population. Valencia, was forced to close the gates to the city. Nobody came in and no one left so as not to spread the contagion.
The disease spread through the air and reached every corner, even though the doors were closed.
He went outside to get a breath of air. He needed to feel his lungs with clean air.
After a while he heard a loud noise coming from inside the house.
He hurried inside. His mother tried to stand up in a moment of lucidity and strength. She tried to get to where Francis was, who seemed to be waking up.
“Mother!” Exclaimed Juan C., and rushed to her aid. You must not get up.
He laid her down on her bed again.
She smiled at him and took him by the hand.
“Take care of your brother, I love you.” Her words were barely a whisper before she plunged into a dream in which she would know death.
She took her last breath.
Juan Carlos felt his heart shatter. The ones he loved the most in the world were gone forever and he could do nothing to stop it
He wept over his mother's body, screaming for her to wake up. He had recently had the same reaction, only that time, he was mourning the loss of his beloved Cecilia.
Francis, still drowsy, joined in his pain.
And there, as they wept for the loss of the woman who gave them life twice, many things happened outside that would change the fate of Juan Carlos and Francisco Requena.
IX
Isabel smiled.
Luke looked at her with a piercing eye and an arched eyebrow. She knew what that meant. They were about to play the sheep and the lion and as usual, she would be delighted to play the perfect sheep.
She loved the way he stroked every inch of her body. How he paused to savor it, the way he worshipped it and then possessed it until they both fell prisoners to exhaustion.
Luke ran the tip of his tongue over her lips and Isabel felt them pumping. She wanted him to tear her clothes off, throw her onto her desk, and penetrate her without mercy.
She wanted to moan. She wanted to make him moan. She wanted to give him all the pleasure he deserved.
Then, he turned his gaze to the window and got lost in the city streets.
She came over and hugged him from behind.
“Make me yours, Luke.” She lowered her hand to cup his sex. Feeling that he was ready for her, he turned her on and she promptly melted into their passionate kiss. Exploring each other’s mouths while removing the garments that prevented them from being skin to skin as their love burned with desire.
He picked her up by the waist with her legs spread wide and her buttocks barely resting on the edge of her desk. She moaned with pleasure at the feel of his throbbing manhood.
He pushed aside her sexy panties and didn’t wait any longer to enter her pussy.
Luke felt the need to pound her like never before as his cock brushed against her warm, wet entrance.
He knew she was about to orgasm by the strange flash of her eyes.
Isabel felt her belly tense with a pre-orgasm contraction and urged him to plunge into her faster. She was on the brink of orgasm and he stopped.
He pulled her closer with a handful of her hair and whispered into her ear:
“I love you.” He resumed his thrusts as Isabel erupted into a spasm of pleasure.
She didn’t know what was happening but at last the man she loved, declared his love for her at the most romantic moment in existence.
The ringing in her ear seemed to grow louder and louder.
No, God, please don’t let me die from a heart attack, she thought, now that Luke has finally told me that he loves me.
“Isabel, wake up, please.” She felt someone shaking her.
What was ringing? Was it a dream?
It couldn’t be.
“Isabel!”
The continuous shouting and whistling made her sit up suddenly in bed.
Damn it! It was a dream.
She was stunned.
“Somebody, please, shut the damn alarm off!”
She lay down on the bed again.
“I was dreaming about Luke. He told me that he loved me...”
“Shhh”
“What's happened?” It was then she looked wide eyed at Carlota with the little girl in her arms. She looked terrified.
“It's the alarm.” Her sister said shakily. “It has been ringing for a few minutes. It looks intense. Edward has already called the police. He told me to lock myself in here with you and he took his pistol to scan the house.”
She sat straight up in bed. She was still stunned by the orgasm that Luke had just given her in her dream. It seemed so real that she was going to strangle the damn thief herself for breaking in their house tonight.
As if there were no more nights in the year.
The alarm was still ringing.
“Don’t move or I'll shoot!” Edward yelled from the stairs.
The next thing heard was a clear shot.
***
Carlota slipped into the corridor. She carried the little girl in her arms, who, thank God, was still asleep. There was no human force powerful enough to wake Alice when she was asleep.
“Stay up there.” I have everything under control until the police arrive. “Edward saw his wife's face from the landing of the stairs.”
Carlota began to tremble.
“What happened?” her sister asked. When Carlota didn’t answer, she went to the stair rail. “Was it a thief?” She asked her brother-in-law. “Have you detained him?”
“Yes to both questions. Stay upstairs.”
For Carlota, that was an order to do the opposite. Like when you say “behave yourself” to children. They always end up doing the opposite.
She approached Isabel and put the girl in her arms.
“Didn’t you hear your husband?” Isabel looked at her in astonishment. “Stay here!”
“I’m sorry, but I have to see it with my own eyes.”
Carlota sensed that this intruder had some connection with what was inside the coffin. Her gut was screaming so before her husband even realized it, she hurried to the basement. She grabbed the first flashlight she found, and headed for the passage.
Her heart dropped to her feet. She didn’t know if she was shaking from fear or emotion when she saw the coffin lid had been rolled to one side. There were only strings next to the key she found the night before.
; She backed up two steps, to return to the passageway but something, rather someone, stopped her. That was when the adrenaline shot throughout her body and she bellowed a bone chilling scream.
***
Ed took his wife by the shoulders as soon as she started screaming like crazy. He had no knowledge of the cave’s existence beyond the basement.
“Shhhhhh be quiet, Carlota.”
Oh my God! He shouted, shaking her out of her panic. It was clear she was truly panicked.
Ed felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and that only happened when something was not right. There was a coffin, his wife was screaming like mad and, he had just shot a scarred naked man trying to leave his house.
If it had been an ordinary thief he would have been dressed and trying to get inside.
Second, the man obeyed the order but then, he tried to turn around. Terror seized Edward's chest causing him to shoot.
He was an expert shot, born into a family of duck hunters so it was somewhat difficult to miss the shot. As the saying goes: where he put his eyes, he put the bullet.
Never before had he shot a human being and he felt his stomach turn at once, but as soon as he saw his wife flash past him with a frightened look toward the basement, he had no choice but to keep his dinner from returning and run after Carlota. She went into the basement and disappeared in the darkness of a dirt corridor.
What the hell was going on tonight?
Something told him that the man he shot was a threat to them and that he had done right.
Carlota managed to get out of her arms.
“Carlota!”
His wife ran desperately.
After glancing behind him once again, he followed her. The place gave him the creeps.
He quickened his pace when he heard an intense cry coming from upstairs.
***
Isabel was trying to understand what the heck was going on and with the little girl in her arms, it was a bit complicated.
She decided to leave her in her crib. There she would be safe and if the intruder had already been shot, she had nothing to worry about.
She cautiously stalked down the stairs and saw the front door was open with a lifeless man lying on the floor. She focused on something else immediately, she did not have the stomach to look at dead bodies and blood.
She was already in charge of defending her brother-in-law. Ed shot the intruder in self-defense inside his house.
At that moment, she longed for a drink of water to try and claim down. She needed to see what her sister and brother-in-law where doing.
Carlota ran downstairs without saying anything, then her brother-in-law followed her.
She noticed that the laundry room and basement door was open. When she crossed the threshold to go find her sister and Ed, she heard Carlota’s horrifying cry. She just knew it came from the far side of the basement.
“The coffin,” she breathlessly exclaimed. Panic invaded her already sensitive nervous system.
Everyone reacts differently in stressful situations. Today, instead of going to the aid of her sister and brother-in-law, Isabel, hurriedly retraced her steps.
She wanted to jump to the second floor, take her niece in her arms and then run from there asking for help because the police were taking too long to arrive.
She sped past the body that still lay on the ground and jumped up two stairs.
Then she stopped short, just like when you press the stop button.
A sound and a moan.
She ordered her legs to continue moving, but it didn’t matter. Fear completely paralyzed her. All she could do was turn her head slightly and out of the corner of her eye, she saw something moving at the door.
Not something, somebody.
She turned her head a little more, and that was when she saw everything clearly.
The man who still had blood on his head was standing there like nothing happened.
Isabel began to hyperventilate. Her ears were buzzing.
The man looked her directly in the eyes and she felt a chill run down her spine. That was the last straw; she let loose the most terrifying scream her life.
***
Carlota was stunned by the scene when she arrived in the living room. She saw the man on the verge of escaping from the house. Her sister screamed as she did seconds before because her husband scared her.
As soon as she went downstairs and saw the body of the scarred intruder she knew it was related to the coffin.
Her intuition never failed her.
The wounded man looked her directly in the eyes.
“I have to go.”
Edward, who was following Carlota, immediately pointed at the man.
“What the hell is going on here? How is he standing? I put a damn bullet in his head.”
Carlota felt her husband take the safety off again. She knew him and knew he was going to shoot again. She took a deep breath and went to her husband.
“Are you crazy?!” Edward looked dismayed. “I almost shot you.”
“Don’t shoot, please.”
“He’s escaping!” Isabel shouted.
“I'm going after him.” Carlota said to her husband, and went to leave.
Her plans were quickly halted when Edward grabbed her tightly by one arm forcing her to turn around.
A fed up Edward asked, “What the hell is wrong with you today?”
Carlota could see fear and anger in the eyes of the man she loved.
“Honey, I'm sorry, but this is my golden opportunity and I will not let it slip away.”
“If you try to move from here I will tie you to a pillar in the house.”
“I'm sorry.” Was her only answer before she punched him in the nose and ran after the wounded intruder, who was escaping into the night.
***
“What’s wrong with my wife today?” Edward asked his sister-in-law, who stood like a statue on the third step.
From where she was, she could clearly see her sister when she reached the escaping man and managed to stop him.
He looked terrified. Her sister approached him with caution.
“Was she crazy! She was convinced that this man had some connection with the mysterious coffin in the basement.”
She blinked a couple of times and when her brother-in-law was about to go get Carlota. Isabel stopped him.
“You too?”
“Leave her. You know her well. They are not too far away and it’s clear this man doesn’t want to hurt her or he would have already.”
“He's a damn stranger, in our house! Have the two of you gone mad? And what the hell is a coffin doing under the property?” Edward touched his nose again to make sure his wife hadn’t made him bleed. She hit him with all her strength. He didn’t realize she was so strong. Although it hurt like hell to be punched in the nose, he was thankful she had not made him bleed or hit him somewhere worse.
Isabel peered at her brother-in-law.
He was upset.
Her sister broke her promise about no going into the basement until the next day.
“Let's go to the basement.”
“I'm not going anywhere unless I put another bullet in that zombie's head and...”
Ed broke off abruptly.
“Zombies don’t exist, do they?”
Isabel wanted to laugh at her brother-in-law’s remark. It seemed that the poor man was beginning to lose it. A coffin, a man who rose from the dead twice in the same night, Carlota's writing spirit preventing the man from disappearing or dying, well, maybe if there were zombies.
Although he seemed to be in very good health.
“The coffin was open, wasn’t it?”
“You knew about it?”
“That's what we were all going to see today. Together. But you already know how your wife is.”
“Him.” He pointed to the man who was talking to Carlota a few feet away, “did he come out of the coffin?”
Isabel shrugged.
“I think so.”<
br />
He felt her brother-in-law breathe deeply.
“I'm going to make coffee, because it’s going to be a long night.” She said when she saw her sister take the man by the arm and walk toward the house.
X
Juan Carlos and his brother continued on with their lives with the pain of loss etched deeply in their hearts.
Things were not going well in the country. There were rumors of the great power that the Holy Inquisition was taking in Spain. In fact, one of the rumors came from the north of the country, where apparently the Inquisitors of Logroño were making a relentless hunt for witchcraft and heresy.
Juan Carlos thought of his mother telling him to leave before the inquisitors arrived.
It was only a matter of time. They could lock themselves inside for a few days but as soon as their neighbors, those who had not yet fallen into disgrace or the guard realized that they were not infected they would be accused of heretics. His mother was not wrong about that.
Some people came to set fire to the house and when they saw Juan Carlos and Francisco in the best health that a human being could enjoy. The only thing they could think of was that this "miracle" could not be anything but the work of the devil.
Something inside Juan Carlos told him to listen to his mother, and soon.
“Francisco,” he said to his brother, “we have to get out of here.”
He nodded.
“We can prepare everything and leave tonight. We will only take what is necessary. We can go south.”
“We can go anywhere no one knows us.”
Francisco watched his brother with concern.
“Will this be forever?”
Juan Carlos laid a hand on his brother's shoulder.
He looked straight into his eyes.
“It seems so, Francisco.”
As soon as night fell, the brothers left the house on horseback with what little they had.
That didn’t go as planned.
Outside, the guard was waiting for them, accompanied by two inquisitors.
It was the first time in his life that Juan Carlos felt panic.
