by I D Johnson
“So, my great-grandma is a pirate in the Caribbean?” Elliott asked, sarcastically.
“I didn’t say she was a pirate.” Peggy smacked him in the leg. “I could’ve hit you a lot harder than that if I wanted to. Being a Guardian makes me be able to run faster, jump higher, hit harder than humans.” Frank was nodding his head at that.
“No offense, Mom, but I’ve seen you run, and you run like any other girl I know,” Jimmy chuckled. If nothing else, it was nice to hear Jimmy laugh again.
“Oh, really?” Peggy got up, and in a split second, she leapt over the coffee table and took off. She was moving so quickly, Elliott’s eyes could hardly adjust. In the blink of an eye, she was back sitting with them on the couch, a smug look on her face.
“Whoa! How did you do that?” Jimmy asked.
“I told you. I’m stronger and faster than you can imagine.” She settled back into the couch, not even breathing heavy, with a content sigh, like she was glad to have gotten that out of her system.
“And… we’ll be able to do that, too?” Elliott asked.
“Yes, if you choose to Transform. But I want you to think long and hard about it because this type of life isn’t for everyone. You, especially. You have young children to think about.”
“I know for sure I’m going to do it,” Jimmy said. “When can I?”
“I told you, you have to be seventeen before whatever it is inside of your blood activates so that you can Transform. And then, there are a couple of ways it can happen. If you happen to encounter a Vampire, that will often trigger it. There’s also an injection they can give you, which is what I did.”
“Does it hurt?” Jimmy asked. “I hate shots.”
“It can hurt--sometimes. There’s a very good Healer who works for the team now who has been working on making it less painful.”
“What about if you see a Vampire? Does that method hurt?” Jimmy was full of questions.
“It just depends. Everyone is different,” Peggy explained.
“And that wouldn’t work until I was seventeen? What if I saw one before then?”
“That would be very dangerous.” Peggy looked at him sternly. “That’s why I am telling you this now, so that you don’t go messing around looking for them. Chances are, whatever the two of you saw in the woods was either just passing through or the other LIGHTS team members—that’s what we call the Hunters and Guardians after the training facility everyone goes to, the Lincoln International Guardian and Hunter Training Station—have already figured it out and destroyed them. There are a few Hunters and Guardians who operate out of this area. I’m sure Janette already knows about the creatures you saw, but we can let her know.”
“And where does she live?” Elliott asked, thinking it was about the sanist question to ask of the ones Jimmy hadn’t thought of yet.
“In Kansas City. That’s where the headquarters is. There are other bases around the globe, but Jordan and Janette operate out of there.” Peggy gave him a small smile.
Before anyone could ask anything else, the house phone rang. Frank started to get up to answer it, but Peggy waved him off and headed to the kitchen. Elliott looked at the photo album and shook his head. This day definitely didn’t turn out the way he thought it would.
“Elliott, that was Nancy,” Peggy said, coming back into the living room. “She said she’d like for you to pick her up from her folks’ house now.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll have to see the fancy phone some other time.” He looked at Jimmy. “Stay out of trouble, kid.”
“I will,” Jimmy replied, but he had a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
He stood and hugged his mom. “Thanks for telling me, Mom,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if it was really a good thing or not. Whether or not he believed her was one thing, but the idea that it could be true made his life even more complicated.
Peggy hugged him back. “Just a couple of quick things. You cannot tell anyone about this. It’s called the Clandestine Ternion—which essentially means the secret three. You can’t tell anyone what you know about Vampires, Hunters, and Guardians, including Nancy at this point. Maybe later if you decided to Transform, you can tell her then.” That wasn’t a problem since the last thing he wanted was to go home and tell his pregnant wife that he could turn into some sort of creature with superpowers. She’d have his stuff packed and out the door in five minutes flat, bulging belly or not.
“And the other thing is, you have to decide whether or not you’re going to go through with this before your twenty-second birthday. If you don’t Transform by then, for some reason, there’s a good chance you never will be able to.”
Elliott nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He stooped to hug his dad goodbye and headed for the door. Once behind the wheel, he couldn’t help but shake his head. All of this sounded so absolutely ridiculous, and yet, there was no doubt he’d seen something in those woods. And Peggy had just proven she was far faster than any human he had ever seen in his life.
There really was no time to think about any of that right now, however. He had a pregnant wife and a toddler to think about. He shifted into drive and spun his car around, heading back into town, back into reality, and as far away from the Clandestine Ternion as he could get.
Chapter 9
Norman, Oklahoma, 1959
The front door slammed as Nancy took off, the keys to the new Caddy in her hand. Elliott been declared Oklahoma’s top used car salesman for the second year in a row, and last year, Mr. Anderson had said if he did it again, he’d buy him a new Cadillac. Elliott had worked his tail end off all year long to win the keys to that car, out selling the next highest dealer at his location, Peter, by over $200,000 and the next highest salesman in the state by over $50,000.
Nancy had been happy to have the car, but she didn’t seem particularly grateful to him, which shouldn’t have surprised him. She seemed to think the bills paid themselves. She was headed over to Linda’s house and then to the movies, which was fine with him. Getting married because she was pregnant might have seemed like the noble thing to do at the time, but he’d realized pretty quickly this was nothing more than a union in name only, and Nancy wasn’t any more interested in being with him than she was giving up her cigarettes.
He couldn’t blame her for needing a break, however. Even though he loved spending time with his toddlers, Wally was three now, and Michael was nearly two and into everything. Elliott loved playing with his boys, but he wouldn’t want to do it all day long like their mother did. So when she asked to go out in the evening, which seemed to be more and more the norm, he let her go.
Most evenings, he played with the boys for a few hours before putting them to bed and spending the rest of the evening cleaning up the house. He understood Nancy had her hands full, but the boys did nap during the day. He wondered why she couldn’t seem to get the dishes done then. At least she usually managed to vacuum at some point during the day since he’d hate to have to sweep the floors while the babies were asleep.
He finished drying the last dish and putting it in the cupboard before stretching and grabbing a towel to wipe the counter off. A strange noise from the back yard caught his attention. He peered out the window above the sink but couldn’t see anything. It was more of a scratching sound, like fingernails along the wooden fence, and at first he thought it might be a tree branch, but then, he couldn’t think of any trees in his yard or his neighbors that would’ve been low enough for that. Confused, he walked over to the light switch and flipped it off, hoping that might help him have a better view.
He could see one large elm tree that shaded most of his own back yard, as well as the old rusty swing set he intended to paint for the kids. Beyond that, there was the fence and the neighbor’s roofline. Mrs. Cooper was a nice older woman who lived alone, and he often mowed her yard for her since most of her family lived in Tulsa. He didn’t see anything unusual and was just about to go back to the light switch when something moved in Mrs. Cooper’s back ya
rd, and Elliott froze.
A strange sensation hit him in the gut, like nothing he’d ever felt before. It was almost as if the usual butterflies one might get from being excited or nervous had grown spikes on their wings and were fluttering around shredding his insides. Whatever it was, the only times he’d ever remotely felt like this before were when he’d seen those things in the woods at Lawson’s Point and the time he’d noticed the odd coloring around that bus driver’s eyes.
It had been a very long time since he’d even let the stories Peggy had told him about Vampires enter his mind. While he was aware his younger brother was obsessed with the notion that someday he’d be able to Transform into some sort of warrior and chase these things down, Elliott was too busy living his current mundane existence to even consider trying to develop superpowers. But now, looking out his own window into the neighbor’s back yard, he realized the movement appeared to be a tall, thin man with long dark hair. It reminded him of the creatures from the woods, and instinctively, he knew he had to stop the guy.
With his boys sleeping in the other room, Elliott felt his options were limited. He certainly couldn’t leave them in a dangerous position, but then, the call to face who or whatever was in his neighbor’s yard refused to go unheeded. Quickly, he took the largest knife he could find from the kitchen draw, tiptoed to his sons’ room to make sure they were still sleeping soundly, locked their bedroom door from the inside, knowing he had the key safely put away in the kitchen, and then locked and deadbolted the front door before grabbing his keyring and heading out the back door, also locking that.
Satisfied it would take some work for anyone or anything to get into his own house, Elliott headed for the fence between himself and Mrs. Cooper’s back yard. It was about five feet tall, and he’d never thought of trying to scale it before, but with the knife in one hand, he grabbed hold of the top of the fence and vaulted himself across, not even touching the tops of the slats with his legs as he leapt agilely to the ground. “Well, that’s different,” he muttered, but he didn’t wait to process the feat. Rather, he headed off in the direction where he’d last seen the figure.
Rounding the corner of the house, he saw what appeared to be a man pulling the screen off of a window that looked to lead to the dining room. At the sound of Elliott’s footfalls, he turned, and his face morphed from stealth to a gruesome grin. “Well, it looks like our little plan worked,” the beast growled through bared teeth. His fangs were lengthy, protruding from his upper gum at least an inch past his droopy, blood red bottom lip. He released the window and turned to face Elliott, who stared at him in confusion.
“Our plan?” he asked, not having a clue what the monster might be talking about.
He began to laugh, gesturing back at Elliott’s house. Shadows passed across the front of the house, and Elliott realized he’d fallen for a rouse. The Vampire was part of a team, one where he other members were now infiltrating his home, where his children were sleeping.
The monster let out a wicked laugh. In a fit of rage, Elliott lurched forward, not finding the situation at all humorous. The Vampire seemed surprised, either at Elliott’s strength or speed, possibly both, and Elliott stabbed him in the heart, pulling the long knife clean through his chest. Though the Vampire didn’t seem mortally wounded, he was stunned, and for some reason, Elliott felt he knew exactly what he needed to do. Having never killed anything more substantial than a cockroach, he never would’ve felt himself capable of prevailing in this situation, but as if a voice called from deep inside of him, he followed his instincts, and seconds later, he’d grabbed the Vampire by his head, and with a quick twist, decapitated him. Ash filled his hands as the severed head disappeared, as did the body.
There was no time to evaluate the situation. The sound of shattering glass had him leaping back across the fence, knife in hand, sprinting toward the front of his own house. He entered through the same window the intruders had used, though he did have to wiggle his hips slightly to get through the narrow frame. He landed with a somersault on the living room floor just as the two figures moved down the hallway toward his sons’ room.
He increased his speed, coming around the corner and taking them in. One was a short, female-looking creature with dark, poofy hair. A trickle of blood ran down the side of her face, making him think she had fed recently. Her elongated fingers ended in twisted, thick claws the color of decaying bone. The other was a slender man with short blond hair and what might’ve been a handsome face if he didn’t suddenly twist it into a freakish smile. He opened his mouth, as if he were going to say something taunting like the other bloodsucker had done, but Elliott didn’t waste time with the two.
The hallway was narrow, and there wasn’t much room to maneuver, but he managed to make it work. The woman came at him first, claws in the air. He side-stepped, kicking out with his left leg as if he were one of the kung fu fighters he’d once seen at a circus when he was younger, catching her in the stomach. She doubled over as the man advanced. Elliott swiveled around, throwing a punch that landed in the monster’s face, followed by a sharp elbow to his throat. He came around with the knife just in time to catch the woman in the chest. This time, he brought it down hard, using his full body weight, ripping a hole through her torso. She screeched but didn’t disappear.
Elliott took care of the man first, dropping the knife and positioning his hands around his scrawny neck and twisting. One violent pull, and he was gone. Then, the woman, who was reeling on the floor, clutching at her chest looked up. Her dark eyes, rimmed in red, looked fearful as he reached for her throat. There was no place to go in the narrow hallway, and Elliott managed to grab hold of her. She clawed at his hands with her twisted fingernails, but didn’t even break the skin, and seconds later, she too was gone.
Exhausted, Elliott stood in the dark hallway with ash on his hands and two piles of it on either side of his feet. He dusted his palms off, unable to believe what he’d done. How had any of this been real, and more importantly, how had his sons slept right through it? He couldn’t hear a sound coming from their room. Deciding it would be in his best interest to check on them anyway, he stooped to pick up the knife, planning to take it with him into the kitchen while he retrieved the key.
The living room light came on, flooding the opening of the hallway with light which reached only to his knees. Hurried, but familiar, footsteps caught his ear, and Nancy came around the corner. “Elliott?” she asked, looking at him with terror in her eyes. She took a step backward. “What the hell are you doing? Why do you have a knife? Where are the boys?”
“Nancy, calm down!” he said, though he didn’t blame her for being upset. He had to look a mess, and he couldn’t hardly tell her the truth of what had happened.
“What did you do?” She took a few steps back into the living room and saw the shattered window.
“No, I didn’t do anything, Nancy. I promise. Someone tried to get in. I scared them off.”
“What the hell is this dust all over the ground?” He had no explanation for that. “You expect me to believe someone broke that window and tracked in all this mess?”
“No, I uh….” He couldn’t think of anything to say that made logical sense, and his brain was having trouble even validating what had happened.
“Move!” she shouted, going to the boys’ bedroom.
“It’s locked,” he replied as she jiggled the handle. “I locked the door when I saw the intruders outside of the window.”
Even though she wasn’t standing in a place where the light from the living room could reach her face, he knew the expression that was there. She thought he was crazy. “Give me that knife!” she demanded, coming back toward him.
He handed it over, and she hurried into the kitchen. A few seconds later, she returned with the key, sans the knife. Muttering under her breath, she slipped the key into the door and slowly opened it. Neither boy had made a peep the entire time, and while Elliott was slightly worried about them, particularly after what he
had just seen, he was confident he had managed to protect them.
He followed Nancy into the bedroom. She checked on Michael, who was sleeping soundly in his crib, while Elliott rested his large palm on Wally’s chest, which rose and fell as expected, and then they switched places. Once the mother was satisfied no harm had befallen her beloved babies, they quietly exited the room, shutting the door behind them.
Trudging through the ash in the hallway to get back to the living room, where the glass covered the floor, Elliott absently wished he had some sort of device that could quickly suck up Vampire debris. Having the remains of a bloodsucker in the Hoover seemed like a macabre situation.
Nancy folded her arms and turned to look at him, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what the hell you were up to, Elliott Sanderson, but you should know, I don’t trust you one iota. Not after this.”
“What?” he asked, staring at her in disbelief. “I told you… someone broke the window. I was protecting the kids. You can’t actually think I’d try to harm them, do you?”
“I don’t know! I have no idea! I come home, and you’re standing there like a mad man, your hair all standing up, your eyes crazy. You have a butcher knife in your hand, and you look at me like you think you might have to run me through.”
“It was more of a large steak knife….”
“Elliott!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. But what about the broken window? Do you think I shattered the glass to make it look like someone broke in?” He thought about telling her he’d also gone over to Mrs. Cooper’s because he’d seen someone in her back yard, too, but that probably wouldn’t make any sense. The thought of trying to explain to her what had really happened seemed out of the question considering she wasn’t even buying his human intruder story.
“I don’t know what you did. Your shoes are muddy. Maybe you went out and broke the window and then came in to kill the boys. The front door was locked and bolted. When was the last time we even locked it?”
