Love Is The Beginning (Valerie Dearborn) (3 page)

Jack burst into his apartment behind the lobby, slamming the
door and locking it behind him. “Mama! Papa!”

His mother came out of the living room, her blue house dress
covered in dust. His father was right behind her. She put her arm around Jack,
cuddling him into her warm body. She wasn't a large woman, but neither was she
particularly thin. His father had once made a comment about having something to
hold onto, a comment he tried not to think about.

“What's wrong Jackie? You look upset.”

“Upstairs.” He stopped speaking, unsure what to say. The man
had said he would take care of it. But he had a gun. Plus, Ella was up there.
What if the man missed, and Ella got hurt? What if he was lying and killed them
both? Uncle Vito would know what to do better than some American rambling about
vampires.       

“Papa, there is a man upstairs with a gun. And the girl in
room twelve has more bites! They’re on her neck! He told me to wait, but I
don't know what to do! Call Uncle Vito!” He began to tremble, the enormity of
the moment overwhelming him.

His dad touched his hair and began to nod. “Okay, Jack. It
will be all right. I'll go and see. Maria, call Vito and send him over to have
a look. It can't hurt.” He shrugged lightly, and it was clear that his father
thought he was humoring Jack and didn't take him seriously. The police station
was across the street, their small town virtually crimeless unless a tourist
got drunk and rowdy.

“It's true, Papa! Don't go upstairs. Wait for Uncle to
come!”

His dad left the apartment.

Jack stood frozen as his mother took his hand and led him
over to the phone, sitting him down on the old brown couch so she could watch
him while she made the phone call. Why had he let his father leave? Why hadn't
he reached out and stopped him? It was dangerous upstairs, maybe even deadly. 
His mother started speaking to Uncle Vito, and Jack jumped up, running after
his father.

“Papa! Papa!” he tried to shout, but couldn't make his voice
go above a whisper, terror choking him. Jack tried to go faster and heard steps
behind him. He looked behind him quickly, barely slowing to look, and saw his
mother following him up the stairs.

Suddenly, there was a shot. The picture on the wall beside
him jumping at the recoil. The sound of Ella screaming echoed through the
hallway.

Skidding around the corner, Jack saw the door to Ella's room
was open. A few more steps and he'd be there. But then the woman, Marion, came
out.  Uncommonly tall and painfully thin, her already narrow waist was cinched
into a corset that made her body look almost bisected; like an ant. Her dark
blue Victorian-style dress was covered in blood from where she'd been shot, but
she moved quickly and sleekly, unaffected by the gaping hole in her chest. 

She was wrong and frightening in a primal way, like a
predator, and even though it was stupid, nonsensical; he knew he was the prey. 
Her pace was odd, as though she floated down the hall, rather than walked. She
gained on him, and Jack had to decide if he was going to run towards her, to
his father, or away.

She would kill him. The certainty of it washed through him,
forcing him to turn back the way he'd come.

His feet slipped, and his knee banged hard on the wooden
floor, pain shooting up his leg. Scrambling to his feet, he started to move
again when he felt the cold steel of her grip wrap around his neck. She carried
him forward by the scruff, as though he were a puppy, the smell of her burning
his nostrils. It was a cloying scent—sweet and rotten at the same time.

“I have you to thank for this, do I? I've just lost my
little girl thanks to you.” There was a long, dramatic pause. “I suppose you’ll
do instead.”  She hissed it in his ear, each word protracted and icy, holding
him suspended in midair, as though he was a bag of garbage someone forgot to
put out.

It was hard to breathe with her hard hand gripping him,
almost choking him. He struggled, tried to kick and scratch her, in his frantic
attempt to free himself. Another shot sounded, and Marion jerked forward as a
bullet went into her from behind, dropping Jack in the process.

Marion stood again, a black, oily substance sliding like
sludge down her chest. Her movements were jerky and stilted, like a marionette,
as she grabbed him up again and threw him over her shoulder.  Hitting her with
all his strength, Jack flailed and twisted, but she was as hard as rock, his
blows affecting her as lightly as rain.  It was like a fight between a mouse
and a snake—over before it started.

His mother rushed at them, and he felt her hands grip his
legs hard for an instant as she tried to pull him free of Marion's grasp. Then,
there was a hard, wet snap right next to his ear. He felt the vibration of it
rattling around in his ear canal. His mother's hands let go, sliding off him as
softly as a caress. Marion kept walking, and as she went down the stairs, Jack
lifted his head from her bony back, trying to catch a glimpse of his mother.

She was lying on the floor in the middle of the hallway,
brown eyes open and unseeing, arms carelessly thrown out to her sides; legs
twisted as though she'd fallen while in the process of turning in a circle. Jack
started to scream and thrash harder, his voice a continuous, pitiable shriek as
he realized that his mother was dead. She’d died trying to protect him, and if
only he’d listened to Nate; she’d still be alive.

“Oh god! You're not even worth it, if you're going to cause
this much of a racket.” Marion  tossed him aside, his body skidding along the
marble entryway until his shoulder hit the wall. She kept walking—this woman of
destruction—straight towards the wall, and then she disappeared as though she'd
walked right through it.

Gingerly, he stood up and walked to the stairs, shock
surrounding him like a blanket, making him slow and awkward. He needed to see
his father, maybe he was all right. Maybe Jack could help him. At the top of
the stairs, he saw his mother's broken body and walked by it carefully,
refusing to look too closely, unable to bear the sight of her—the whirling
dervish she had been, still…forever.

He wouldn't think about that right now, couldn't see that
again.
Just keep moving
.

And suddenly, he was at room twelve. The room eerily quiet,
the hallway undisturbed as though Marion had never been there. It was just an
empty hallway now. White walls, wood floors, the blue carpet runner, and a few
paintings of Venice and Rome on the walls. 

The light was on. Ella was dead. Eyes closed, fine blond
hair spread out along the pillow. Her hands were folded peacefully on top of
her chest, the silver duvet smoothed around her carefully, as though she'd been
tucked in before Marion killed her. She looked asleep, and even in her sleep,
she was a proper doll.

Jack moved around the bed looking for his father, torn
between the urge to call for him, and the feeling of fear that demanded he say
nothing.

Was
that
his father? That was his clothing—his brown
pants and vest, his white shirt…but there was no head. Just a huge pool of
blood on the floor and splatters on the wall, as though it had sprayed from his
neck in an explosive gush. Jack toppled backward, sitting on the bed and landing
on Ella's foot. With a cry, he listed away from her but didn't stand, his legs
unable to support him as his body tried to decide what to do. How to feel and
function after what he'd just seen. 

This isn't possible
. He could go back five minutes,
and everything would be all right. When he walked out of this room and went
downstairs, he'd find his pretty mama making pasta, and his papa smoking a
cigarette.
That
was the life Jack lived. These last few minutes were just
a nightmare.

There was a gasp behind him, and he turned, seeing a girl
standing behind him in the entryway. Another one, he thought dazedly.  She had
dark hair, brown eyes and couldn't be more than ten or eleven years old. Her
face was not quite heart-shaped, her skin a warm, golden color as though she
was from somewhere hot. And she was American. He knew it by looking at her. She
was looking around the room frantically, a gun that was too large for her
wobbling in her small hand.

“Daddy? Daddy? Where are you?” Her voice was shrill.

Jack's gaze met hers, and he knew she didn't want to come
inside the room. Instead she hovered near the door, shifting from foot to foot
as though once she went into the room, she might never come out again.

This girl knows about death
. She expected her father
to be in here, and she didn't want to see his dead and bloodied body.

“Is he here?” she asked.

Jack forced himself to look around the room, his gaze
nearing his father's body, but never resting on him directly. Jack hadn't even
noticed that there were two bodies on the ground, but there he was—the American
man in the coat. He had blood on his lips and the gun still in his hand. His
eyes were open and fixed on Jack. A wet breath slid out of his mouth, his chest
lurching up and down with each painful breath. Jack turned to tell her that her
father was there and still alive, but he didn't need to.

Whatever she saw on his face, she knew her father was still
alive.  Distantly, he wondered what expression he'd made. Had it been envy for
a girl who still had her father? Or shock at the events that had happened to
him and corrupted his life forever?

She ran into the room and knelt by her father, putting the
gun beside her carefully, so that she could reach it quickly if she needed to.
He was amazed that she thought about it. But maybe she was used to her father
being injured, carrying guns around, and vampires killing each other. Did
someone get used to that?

Dimly, he watched her tug at the sheet he was sitting on. He
stood and fell to the ground beside her, unable to stand. She yanked it free
and wadded it up, pushing it against her father's chest to try to stop the
blood that was leaking down his side.

 “Here! You take this. Push hard, and I'll call for help.”

She grabbed his hands, and he let her place them firmly over
the wound before running off.  His gaze focused on the gun the girl had left
behind, and he wondered if she had been the one who shot Marion.

Some time passed. It really couldn't have been that long
because all she did was call an ambulance, but it seemed like a very long time
that he held his hands pressed against the warm, wet wound. His hands felt cold
and numb, but the blood that soaked his palms was dense and hot. He didn't
speak to the man or even look at him, instead looking at the ugly wood paneling
on the wall, studying the knots and grooves until they twisted into faces.

The girl pushed him forcefully out of the way. She was
carrying a bag of blood which she held carefully in shaking hands. She put the
bag on the ground, and Jack found himself watching her movements
dispassionately. It wouldn't help his parents, he thought. Nothing could be
done to help his parents. He looked back to the girl as she took the man's arm
and pushed up his sleeve, talking in a low voice as she inserted a needle into
his arm with deliberate movements.

She watched the blood go down the tube, saw it enter her
father's body. She seemed to deflate suddenly, knowing she couldn't do anything
else for her father right now but wait for help. Her eyes were vacant, and she
trembled. Her dark eyes reminded him of the knots in the wood paneling.

They waited in silence.

The paramedics came and took the man to the hospital. The
girl trailed behind them like a shadow. The police arrived and opened the doors
to all the rooms, but all the guests were gone, escaped somehow. There were
five dead bodies, Ella included, her arms crossed in repose. Jack remembered
that only five meals had been ordered. Were they really vampires?

He heard the policemen whispering and looking at him
pityingly. He felt a burst of rage and shame. Rage at being so useless and
weak. That woman had carried him around like he was no heavier than a baby. His
whole family had been slaughtered because of
him
. The man, Nate, had
told him to wait downstairs, and he'd screwed it up.

When his father had walked out the door, Jack could have
stopped him. If only he’d been able to
think
just a little bit faster,
he could have kept his dad there, and they both would still be alive. Why had
he been so stupid and reckless?

He punched the floor, overcome with rage, surprised when he
felt the hard wood impact his knuckles. A wave of pain exploded in his hand,
and he did it again, punching the ground, the pain in his body a distraction
from the pain of his grief. He’d been useless.  Even that girl had been better
prepared than him. And she was a girl!

Marion had destroyed his life with careless ease, and he
thought that even now, only a few hours later, if he tracked her down and
showed her pictures of his family that she'd just killed; she wouldn't even
recognize them.

Where did Ella fit into things? Food. She’d been a meal, and
when she’d caused trouble, Marion had discarded her, ready to move on. To him.

His whole body began to shake, as the reality of living in a
world of vampires sunk in. Bile rose in his throat just thinking about how
disgusting they were, something like that touching him. Saliva filled his mouth,
and he thought he might throw up. Jack looked around for somewhere to be sick
and took a few deep breaths, hoping to keep the nausea at bay. 

His thoughts were interrupted as someone came and led Jack
out of the room where his father and Ella had died, taking him to the apartment
at the back of the hotel that he'd grown up in. Someone put him on a couch, and
it could have been someone else who brought him food—he didn't care enough to
see who these people were. Why were they trying to feed him? He'd just watched
people be butchered—the last thing he wanted was food.