I had to admit I hated that any sense of privacy I’d felt before knowing about my grandparents was quickly melting away. How was I supposed to go about my life if I didn’t even have the privacy of my own mind to retreat to? If Lois and Randall were going to be part of my life, I guess I’d need to find an answer to that question.
Disturbing my quiet contemplation of this depressing fact, I heard the sound of the front door open and footsteps in the living room below. Angry that my curiosity was getting the better of me, I dragged myself up and started downstairs to see what was going on. Not that they’d let me do anything useful if there was anything to be done, but I needed a distraction from my all too consuming memories of Ben. Even as I tried to concentrate on the grandparent problem, I kept seeing his brown eyes smiling at me from the other side of the bench. My mind seemed to be seeking him out against my will, making me wonder if my subconscious knew something I didn’t. As I descended the rickety old stairs, I paused and wondered if it could possibly have anything to do with the voice that talked in my sleep.
“We spotted him about five miles east of here. I think he was circling the property, trying to pick up our scents to get an idea of our numbers,” Thomas said, his voice issuing from the living room as I came down the back stairs. It looked like all six of them were all in the living room now.
Looking to avoid joining their conversation, I skirted around the back of the house and into the kitchen where I could overhear them if I chose to. Although I heard their voices, I wasn’t purposefully listening to them. I caught enough to know that, despite their best efforts, I’d probably be dead by morning.
Feeling like I should really care more about my predicament, I opened up the cabinet with my food supplies and pulled out a box of granola bars. Hopping up on the counter, I started to eat one, washing it down with one of my last bottles of water. Randall’s stuff was all over the kitchen table with a few additional things scattered on the floor. One of the items on the floor looked like a cooler which I was pretty sure had blood in it. Their granola bars I thought to myself with a quirky smile as I chewed on mine.
There was a smaller box off to the side that also looked like some sort of cooler, but it had tight latches on its sides. It peaked my curiosity so I quietly hopped down and walked over to give it a closer inspection. Being extra quiet, I bent down and pried up the latches on either side. Inside its thick lid and sides were vials of blood with my name written on them. Randall had drawn my blood a few times since he’d arrived and I guess this was where he was storing his little stockpile of me.
My curiosity now satisfied, I closed the container and hopped back up on the counter to continue my granola bar dinner. As I was finishing the second bar Daniel came in and leaned back against the counter beside me.
“It won’t be long now,” he said as if to comfort me. “soon it will all be over and then we can go home.” He reached over and laid a hand on my knee as he smiled up at me.
I looked back into the living room. In the dimly lit room a fire burned in the hearth giving the room it’s only light. In the amber glow it cast, only Randall and Lois remained now.
“Where did the others go?”
“They’re circling the house.”
My eyes were drawn back to the living room as Lois sat down in the chair. Randall stood leaning against the fireplace, watching the wood slowly burn as he churned something over in his mind. I suppose if I concentrated hard enough, I could have heard what it was if I’d really wanted to. But I didn’t.
“It must be weird for them – being back here,” I commented, more to myself than to Daniel.
“I’m sure,” he said, following the direction of my gaze.
Randall walked over and sat down on the floor next to the chair. He watched the fire for a few moments then laid his head down on Lois’ knee and I watched as she gently reached over and began to stroke his hair with her fingers. His eyes closed at her touch as he savored the sensation of it. Suddenly I felt my face flush. I shouldn’t be watching such an intimate moment between them.
Still watching them, I felt Daniels hand as he gently caressed my knee. His touch yanked my gaze back to him only to see his eyes fixed on Randall and Lois as well. Was he thinking what I was thinking? Would that be us someday?
As I leaned down and placed my head on his shoulder, the house fell quiet for a while except for the sound of the crackling fire and the steady rhythm of my heart.
“He talks differently when he’s with her,” I murmured absentmindedly.
“I’m sorry?”
I looked up to meet Daniel’s gaze.
“Randall. He talks differently. It’s odd really, like a slightly different accent. Almost sounds more English. It’s very subtle.”
He looked at them over his shoulder for a moment before turning back to me.
“You know, I think you’re right. I can’t believe I never noticed that before.”
“Maybe it’s their human voices.”
“Human voices?”
“Yeah, how they used to talk to each other back in the 1700’s when they were still human.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I suppose that’s possible. Regional accents change. Maybe that’s the original Rhode Island accent … I just can’t believe I never noticed that before.” He turned back and looked at them again almost as if seeing them for the first time.
“Do you talk differently now than you did as a human?”
“No. – Yes. Maybe. I’m not really sure. I never really thought about it. I guess I do. I mean, expressions change. I think you mirror what you hear around you so its only natural for your way of speaking to evolve over time. Sometimes I think I slip into the old ways. I think when I spend time thinking about my parents and siblings and the happy times we spent together … maybe I slip back into how we talked to each other. For a while anyway.”
He got a far of look in his eye as he remembered the family he’d lost so long ago.
Would that be me someday?
Would I get that far off look in my eye a hundred years from now remembering Mom, Dad and Roger?
“Did you ever wonder why if Randall was a pure as a human, the vampire that attacked him left him alive?”
My question seemed to rouse Daniel from his own deep thoughts.
“Yes, I have. But I don’t have a good answer for you. It seems unlikely that it was on purpose.”
“How so?”
“Vampires want to get every last drop of pure blood out of a victim. He’d have had to have left Randall with a least enough blood to survive long enough for the transformation to begin. I can only imagine that he was interrupted and felt the need to flee for fear of discovery.”
“But Randall said he died in the woods. Doesn’t seem like anyone would have come across them there.”
“No, it doesn’t. Like I said, we’ll never know for sure. That vampire probably died well before I was born. Maybe it was on purpose, his creating Randall I mean.”
“Humm,” I mused to myself as I laid my head back on his shoulder. Would I ever know the answer to that question?
In the morning I awoke curled up in my sleeping bag in the upstairs bedroom. Before I opened my eyes, I could smell the remains of the fire Daniel had started in the small fireplace the night before. I looked around the room for him only to find I was alone. He had walked me up the stairs last night and wordlessly watched as I got in the sleeping bag and quickly fell asleep. Somehow I’d expected he’d still be here when I opened my eyes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed I he was gone.
Getting up, I changed clothes, all the while desperately wishing for the running water of a steaming hot shower. I hated not feeling a hundred percent clean. You’d have thought I’d at least have been able to control that if nothing else.
As I descended the stairs I heard laughter coming from the kitchen. Lois and Daniel were the only ones there when I walked in, and without a word I passed them and shuffled over
to the cabinet where I pulled out a box of my granola bars. As I did, Daniel leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead.
“Good morning, sleepy head,” he said playfully.
“What time is it?” I asked, none too enthused at this God forsaken hour of the morning.
“A little after five, I think.”
I made a face and bit into the bar.
“Have a seat,” Daniel said. “I found a few chairs in the back of the barn.”
I looked over to see five mismatched old wooden chairs around the table. Still half asleep, I walked over with a bottle of water and sat down while they went back to their conversation. They were too cheerful for five in the morning, but I guess if you didn’t sleep, it didn’t make much difference what time of day it was.
Humm… that must be strange.
When I finished eating, I went over to the water pump and filled up my canteen before heading towards the back door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Daniel asked sounding concerned and sarcastic at the same time.
“To brush my teeth, if you must know,” I answered, a little irritated at his tone. But really I was just cranky this early in the morning.
I sat down with my feet dangling off the porch and slowly brushed my teeth. In the predawn light I saw Randall out back by the big barn carrying things around like he was cleaning up. I guess the state of his former homestead was getting on his nerves too much for him to be able to stand it any longer. I heard a burst of laughter issuing from the kitchen behind me and wondered what had happened to make Lois stay away for so long. Where had she been all this time?
I felt like I was starting to see through a crack in the door of their lives, and every day the door opened just a little bit wider. I’d seen so much already. What more would I see in the coming days, weeks or however much longer I had them in my life?
Getting up, I went back inside and upstairs to get my jacket. A chill hung in the air even inside the house now that the fires from last night had gone out. As I came back down pulling it tightly around my shoulders, Randall came flying in the backdoor.
“Lily just called. They spotted Demetrius. He’s about two miles west of here. It looks like he’s following the trail we took the other day back from Chimney Orchard. They’re circling around to try to intercept him with Lucy.”
I saw Daniel’s head turn frantically searching for me, causing me to quickly walk into the kitchen and over to his side where I felt safest. Slipping my arm around his waist, he pulled me close as if telling me without words that he’d never leave my side again.
“I think we should join them, Randall,” Lois said with an urgency in her voice. “We don’t know if he’s fed again.”
“Very well. Daniel you stay here with Sara. Don’t leave the house.”
Without a word, Randall and Lois went out the back door together and a moment later, I saw two blurs pass by the window heading down toward the driveway.
Daniel put both his arms around me now and held me close. After a few moments, his grip grew so strong it became hard for me to draw breath, causing me to wonder if death itself could pry me loose of his arms.
“When he comes, he’s going to try to separate us. He’ll need time to feed on you and he knows he won’t be able to if I’m with you. He’ll be vulnerable when he does and he knows I’ll attack then. So he’ll try to either kill me first and then attack you or try to separate us and kill you while I’m not there.”
I tried to say something, but couldn’t find the air in my lungs. He looked down and suddenly realizing what he was doing, eased his grip.
Fifteen minutes passed as we stood in the kitchen holding each other in silence. I thought of many things there in his arms. I thought about how much and how deeply I loved him. I wondered what kind of a future we could possibly have together. Did we even have one at all? Would these be our last minutes together? Would Ben ever know what really happened to me if I was to die today? Then I felt his fingers in my hair as he began to stroke it gently.
“Did I ever tell you how much I love the color of your hair?” he asked softly.
I shook my head no.
“Well, I should have. I remember that first day when I saw you in the hallway outside my office. The way the light from the window danced across your face and up into your hair. It looked like fire. Then you spun your head as you walked away and the fire roared to life as it retreated from my view. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”
I could feel the tears fighting to burst forward and with all that I had left within me was desperately trying to hold them back. I felt like Daniel was saying goodbye, and just entertaining the thought of it felt like losing a grip on my sanity.
Suddenly the clang of his phone broke the silence.
“Thomas? … Thomas, what’s happening?”
He stared at his phone.
“What is it?” I asked, taking a step backward to look up at him.
“I don’t know. It was Thomas’ phone, but there was no one there. I couldn’t hear anything.”
He tried to call him back but no one answered. Then he tried Randall’s phone, but he didn’t answer either. I could feel my heart beating louder and louder as panic started to creep in. Why hadn’t I run when I’d thought about it before? I knew I should never have ignored my instincts like that. I should have made Daniel run with me, run away to that island in the South Pacific he’d told me about. We could have been happy there, for a while anyway. Now what did we have left other than these few minutes?
If I was to die, I wanted to die in his arms, and with great effort, I had to beat back the urge to beg him to take me upstairs and make love to me while we still had some measure of time left to us. I’ll admit it; I didn’t want to die a virgin.
Daniel left me in the kitchen as he went into the living room and opened the front door. He stood in the doorway trying to listen for approaching sounds, signs of either what had happened or what was coming.
Even from behind, I knew he was worried. The tension he held in his finely sculpted shoulders and neck said it all. As I watched him standing in the doorway, I knew I had to come up with some plan. I crossed the room into the kitchen and picked my backpack up off the floor. After pulling out my gun, I tucked it in the back of my jeans and pulled my jacket down over it. It might not do any good, but it made me feel better just knowing it was there.
I turned around and saw Daniel still in the doorway. I knew without a doubt that he would never let anything happen to me as long as he was alive. I’d always assumed he would outlive me, but was now thinking I may have been mistaken in that assumption. I turned away from him. Trying to get the image of his broken body lying across the front lawn out of my mind, I looked down at the floor and the cooler of blood. Before I realized it, I walked over to it and sat down on the cooler and looked to my side.
I wonder – I thought to myself with a glimmer of hope. No one would ever see that coming.
Daniel came back into the kitchen a few minutes later. The worried look in his eyes caused my mind to travel back a day earlier as we stood together in the upstairs closet. Somehow I didn’t think that was an option he was considering now. He came over and took both my hands in his.
“Don’t worry. Everything is going to be alright.”
“I trust you,” I said, staring at his chest. I said it more for him than for me. I think it was what he needed to hear. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust that he would do everything he could, but I wondered if in the end it would be enough.
Was this really the end for us? After everything Randall had put me through, was this really where I was to die? Where both of us might die?
Daniel must have seen what I was thinking in my eyes. I think desperate to erase the look from my face, he moved to pull me into his arms, but before he could the front door suddenly burst open with a loud bang like a gun shot. He instantly spun around while at the same time protectively shoving me behind him. From my sheltering position, I m
anaged to peak out from around his shoulder. A head of long silver hair atop the ghastly white features of what most assuredly had once been a man stood just inside the doorway. He was taller than Daniel and wore a long black cloak trailing down his back. His face was beyond strange. He was old, really old in appearance, but although you could see the age in his face, his skin was taut without any of the wrinkles of old age. Maybe this strange quality was what made him almost mesmerizing to me. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the blackness of his. Of course they were staring back at me as well, almost as if Daniel wasn’t even in the room with us. He wanted me. Yes, I know it was to kill me, but there was something about those eyes that called to me, almost beckoned me to step out from behind Daniel and walk willingly into his arms.
He slowly entered the living room and came to a stop in front of the fireplace. His dark colorless eyes shifted over to stare Daniel down as if suddenly realizing he was a barrier to me. Those eyes that called me were set in an almost pearly white face, checkered with black veins that radiated outward from his eyes and bulged up under his skin. He was scary as hell, yet oddly all I could think was who wears a cloak anymore?
“Out of my way,” he growled at Daniel.
I felt Daniel’s back leave my hand as he ran forward headlong into Demetrius. When they crashed into the timbers of the living room wall, I felt a tremble beneath my feet as the house shook on its foundations. Demetrius grabbed hold of him and flung him across the room towards the fireplace where Daniel fell to the floor on top of the stone hearth with a sickening thud.
After a moment’s hesitation, Daniel shook it off and sprung to his feet. Quickly turning to me he yelled “Run, Sara!” as Demetrius came hurtling after him.
Unable to move, from my vantage point in the kitchen I watched as the two blurs battled back and forth in the living room. They both moved so fast I couldn’t make out who was winning. But when I was able to distinguish them, Daniel didn’t look like he was doing very well, and Demetrius didn’t look like he was giving up any time soon. I tried to run like Daniel had asked. I knew I should, but as hard as I tried, my feet seemed rooted to the spot.
The Purity of Blood: Volume I Page 47
