Vampire Dream

Chapter 7 - Family Issues

We arrived around nighttime at my parents’ house. Mansion, really. I input the multiple codes to open the security gates, then proceeded towards the front door. It burst open before we even got to the front step; my mother ran towards us and locked me in an embrace. She was crying, obvious due to my shoulder immediately getting soaked.

Looking at the front porch, my dad was in the doorway holding a shotgun. Something wasn’t right.

“We were so worried. We thought you were dead!” Mom said.

“Dead? What do you mean?” I asked.

“The newspapers said you were dead,” my father explained. “A picture of your corpse was on the front page.” That explains the shotgun.

“What? No, I just got trapped there. I’m fine. I missed you, though. Both of you.” My mother clung to me harder, and Kingston just looked on.

After a while of us all standing there, we were finally admitted. Kingston and Father immediately went to his study, while I found my room and went to take a shower and put on clothing. I still had blood all over myself, but I prayed they didn’t see that in the darkness. I changed into a pair of short shorts and a large sweater.

Opening the bathroom door, I was greeted with the barrel of a gun. I could hear my mother sobbing in my bedroom.

“Move towards the bed,” he ordered. I did as I was told, and sat down. My mother was in the doorway, tears cascading down her face and fear filled me, for the man I had looked up to was threatening to kill me.

“Dad, I don’t understand. What’s happening?” I saw as tears began to fall down his face, too. He c****d the gun and kept aim at my head.

“What are you? What have you done with my baby girl?”

“Dad, please. Don’t do this. It’s me, Josephine.” Tears were coming from me now. “Please, daddy.” His hands were shaking, causing the gun to shake. Finally, he fell on his knees on the ground, gun falling too. Arms at his sides, he stayed there defeated. I wrapped my arms around him hard, and he responded in kind. Mom walked over and joined in. Looking up, I saw Gabriel in the corner stone faced.

Kingston ran into the room, rubbing his head, but when he saw us all hugging, he gave a huge sigh of relief. His head scoped the room, and right before he could focus on Gabriel, Gabriel vanished. I gave my own personal sigh of relief. Kingston walked into the room and sat on my bed, putting his hand on my head for comfort.

Straggles of breath suddenly filled the room, followed by a loud limp. The doorway consisted of one large Stephy, completely pale, and one barely useful leg. He was snarling and growling, scanning the room. His eyes focused on Kingston, and he pounced. A switch flicked inside me, and I pushed my family aside. My angle of pounce caused Stephy and me to fly across the room into the wall. He had black claws and began scratching me. I bared my teeth at him and scratched back with my well-manicured nails that were very sharp. His blood was getting onto me, and mine onto him. But he didn’t want me: he wanted Kingston.

He tried to take another pounce, but I held him back. Kingston and my parents were doing something in the back corner of the room- trapped- and I refused to let them get killed. I could hear nothing, but the rest of my senses were heightened and focused on the remains of Stephy. We battled back and forth, biting and clawing at one another continually. Then I heard bangs coming from the corner of the room with my parents. Kingston was lying on the floor with my mom holding his head. Father was more confident in his stance, face stiff, gun pointed at both Stephy and I. Stephy tried lunging for them again and a bullet met his face. I grabbed his arm to keep him from continuing progress and two more bangs came and spurred me with Stephy’s blood. He fell twitching to the ground after the third shot, but then there was one more bang. I looked down, and there was a hole where my appendix used to be. I looked back up at my father but he had no emotions for me, for what I was. He aimed a little higher as I continued standing there. I closed my eyes, ready to be ended.

Bang.

I felt no pain, no penetration. I opened my eyes to see Gabriel standing in front of me. Kingston jumped up from the ground and wrestled the gun from my father’s hands. Gabriel turned around to look at me, then fell to the ground. I slid down beside him and ripped off his shirt to assess the injury: a bullet hole in the abdomen. Using his shirt, I put pressure on his wound.

Kingston came to where I was and dragged me away from Gabriel. I reached out to him, but Kingston threw me onto the bed and made a small tear in my dress bigger. I realized that I had actually been shot by my own father.

I watched in awe as Gabriel sat up of his own accord, and the bullet came out of him in the same hole it was in. Then, the skin began to knit together until there wasn’t even a trace of injury. He then jumped up and came over to the bed, where Kingston now had pliers and was pulling the bullet out of me.

I felt no pain. I was only numb.

“Take the humans out of here,” said Gabriel. “Check to see if they’re okay.” Almost dreamlike, Kingston started to leave. As he heaved himself off the bed I grabbed his shirt. He awoke, and looked back at me.

“No, King. Please stay,” I said. Gabriel’s eyes became furious and he snapped, causing Kingston to go back into that dreamlike state.

“No! Kingston! Don’t leave me with him,” I yelled. “Please don’t leave me!” He couldn’t hear me. My mother escaped from him and rushed to my side. She traced my face with her finger. Kingston came back and picked her up, carrying her out of the room.

I watched Gabe as he dug into his pocket. He grabbed another vial of the red liquid.

“No, Gabe. Don’t do it,” I said calmly. He ignored my plea and undid the cork, pouring it into his mouth.

“Gabe, no. No no no, please don’t make me.” I sobbed but couldn’t move as he clamped down on me and pushed the red liquid through my veins. My screams filled the halls of my house. I didn’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here...

I awoke with a start in an unrecognizable room. A man was lying facedown on the ground, older and weak. I was weak as well: weak with hunger. I tentatively got up from the bed and walked towards him. I kneeled beside him. He was breathing, but he wasn’t getting up anytime soon. I checked his neck, and there were two puncture marks on the side. They were about the same width as Gabe’s fangs. I touched them, rubbing the marks.

“Do you know who that is?” I jumped up, startled. There was a dark figure brooding on the wall. He lit a candle, making me just realize the room had been completely dark. His face looked ominous, but it was the knight I had met the first time I woke. He wore different clothes and looked really tired and worn. I felt bad for him, but I didn’t know why.

I flipped over the body on the floor so his face was facing me. He seemed familiar, too, but not to the extent as the knight on the wall. He was suddenly right next to me, making me surprisedly jump again. His face softened, as if he felt better when he was close to me.

“This is your dad,” he said. I looked at the man again, his face unfamiliar to me. “Josie’s dad, at least. He was a military official before his father died and gave him the family corporation. He was never a big fan of us...” I looked at the knight, he looked at the man. Then he looked back up at me.

“So. Are you gonna do it?”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Feast. Off of him. That’s what Gabriel has him here for. A worthless life, he said.” I felt the hate behind his words, I felt like he hated me too. I looked at the man, peaceful and serene. Something was different about him though. Not so much as looks, but as feeling.

“No,” I replied. “I’m not a murderer.” The knight lit up at my words. I loved making him smile. I smiled back.

The man from the floor got up slowly and stared down at us. The knight got up, too. Something wasn’t right.

“Sir, she’s fine. She’s harmless.”

“That thing is not harmless. You told me yourself.” The man’s entire being was filled with sickness and hatred. All he did was look at me with such intended violence in his glare that I began to tear up.

“Sir! She just said she wasn’t gonna do anything to you. Leave her be.”

“As long as she stays alive, she is a curse upon society. If anyone sees her my name will go down the drain.”

“Sir...”

“No, Kingston. She needs to die.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be everything you want,” I began, standing with them. I had no control over my words. “And I’m sorry I’m the worst daughter in the world to you. I didn’t ask for this. Any of it. And I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to be brushed aside because you weren’t everything your father wanted you to be. But you know what? I’m proud of who I became. I’m glad I did what I did to get where I was. If I had to do everything again, I wouldn’t change a thing.” A hand reached out from the darkness and slapped me in the face, causing me to lose balance and fall down. Nothing hurt, though. The knight pounced on the man and they ensued in hand-to-hand combat, where the man excelled tremendously better than the knight. I looked around the room to find what I could do to help. There was a gun, a knife, a bat, and a handheld mirror. The mirror seemed like it would cause the least amount of permanent damage so I picked up the mirror and turned to find the man holding the knight in a headlock, the knight’s breathing diminishing. I rushed over and swung the back of the mirror into the man’s head. The mirror broke off the handle into two pieces. The man released his hold and fell to the ground. The knight began coughing and gasping for breath. I tossed the handle onto the bed and turned to look at the instruments on the table I had seen. There was an older woman to match the man, baseball bat in hand. She was in a perfect stance to bat and swing. Right before the bat connected with my head, I saw the matching set of puncture marks that had been on the man.

Thunk.

I am ten years old, sitting on the swing in the playground crying. Earlier the class had made fun of me because of my speed at learning. I had corrected the teacher multiple times as she was teaching, and she punished me by putting me in a box in the middle of the room. The children were ordered to sharpen their pencils there and throw garbage in overtop of me. A few kids had even spit their gum in my hair. The boy version of the knight came up to me.

Josie, it’s not your fault. He stepped in front of my swing and brought his face level with mine.

It’s always my fault, Kingston. I replied back with a frog in my throat.

He sat in the swing beside me, heaving a large sigh.

Why can’t you be in my classes? He perked.

What do you mean? I looked at him, confused.

I mean, you’re really smart. Even more than me! You could be transferred to my classes and be in my grade! Then we can spend more time together. I thought about what he said, then perked up myself.

Yeah! Let’s do it! I squeaked. He wiped the tears off my face with his hand, then took my hand and led us to the school buildings.

I liked making him smile.