by H. T. Night
Then the exact same thing happened to Josiah's mother. They were working urgently, and then in unison, all the doctors and nurses stopped and shook their heads.
8:01 p.m. “Call it,” one of the nurses said.
“Time of death. 8:01 p.m. Margaret Reign.”
Margaret Reign had been pronounced dead.
Tommy gasped and shook his head. His breathing was erratic and his eyes were drawn to the final partitioned off section which contained the love of his life. I'd never seen a man look so terrified.
I couldn't believe it. Both of Josiah's parents died on this night.
I could see doctors and nurses still working on Maya. She had an IV in her arm and an oxygen mask over her face. All kinds of alarms were beeping in her cubicle.
Then a nurse walked up to Tommy who was sitting on his bed oblivious to anything but the cubicle containing his true love and the team of medical professionals fighting to keep her alive. The nurse cleaned off his face, hands and arms with antiseptic, and put bandages on the worst of his cuts. Tommy acted as if he hadn't noticed her at all. Not even when she plunged the needle into his arm, giving him the tetanus shot.
“Good news,” the doctor came in and said to Tommy.
Tommy turned and looked at him in disbelief and said, “Really?”
“Yes. You don’t need any stitches.”
“Right.”
Tommy jumped off his bed and went over to where they were working on Maya. A male nurse told him to go sit down in his own cubicle. Tommy told him that the woman inside was his fiancée.
They worked and worked on her. Then, just like they had done with Maya’s parents, the doctors and nurses stopped trying. They all looked at one another in a manner that seemed helpless.
“8:22 p.m. Call it,” one of them said.
“Time of death. 8:22 p.m. Maya Reign.”
Maya Reign, the love of Tommy's life, had been pronounced dead.
Tommy fell to his knees and howled in pain right there in the middle of the emergency room.
Then I snapped out of the vision.
My vision of the kitchen was blurred from unshed tears, and I ached for Tommy. No wonder he and Josiah seemed like brothers. He was meant to be a part of that family and he had been robbed. They both lost everyone they loved that night. Of course they were now bonded as brothers. There were some visions I wished I never had to see, and this was definitely one of them.
It had been overwhelming and heartbreaking. I never realized Tommy had endured so much pain. I sat there in awe, thinking about the anguish Tommy must have felt that night. Watching, as one by one his family had been taken away from him, all because of one careless driver. I decided to take a walk around the house to get my head straight.
Chapter Thirteen
After seeing Tommy's vision, I needed to take a break.
My thoughts once again turned to Marlene and the night she grilled me about the murders that had happened the first week we met back in 1955.
I just rocked in my chair and closed my eyes.
***
“Alright, Marlene, I am going to tell you everything. Just let me tell it my way. It will be the truth. But sometimes things aren’t what they appear to be at first glance. You will need to hear the full story.”
She nodded, “I’m ready, Todd.”
“To fully understand, I need to take you back to my parents while they were still alive.” I paused. “All my life something was very strange about my parents. There were many clues that they had a very strange extracurricular activity. During the day, they were both school teachers. But at night, they were something spectacular. I was unsure exactly what it was other than my aunt Trudy would stay over many nights while both my parents were gone. I knew whatever they were doing was only happening in the dark of night. Years went by and my suspicions grew stronger and stronger. Then one day, when I was twelve, everything became very clear to me. I knew exactly who or what they were.”
Marlene stared at me blankly and asked the obvious question, “What were they?”
“My parents were Vampire Hunters.”
“You were twelve?” Marlene asked. “How did you find out?”
“We were on a camping trip. We used to go up to Lake Gregory in Crestline and rent a cabin each year. That particular summer changed my way of thinking and my life has never been the same since.”
“Something happened while you and your family were at this cabin?” Marlene asked.
Yes, it was the third night we were at the cabin. We usually stayed four nights, so the fact that it was the third night stood out in my mind. The cabin we would rent had three bedrooms and a den-like living room. My parents would take a room and I would always grab a room for myself. We would put all of our luggage in the room that no one was using.
My mom liked to cook and we would always grab things from the local market. On that night, my dad and I went on an errand to grab some milk and butter for the dish my mom was preparing. I'd talked my dad into buying the ingredients for S'mores, so I was pretty pleased with myself.
It was a typical evening in the San Bernardino mountains. It was cool and the stars were out and shining brightly in the velvet black sky. In Orange County, the stars were always dimmed by the smog and artificial lights from such a densely populated county.
My dad was driving the family vehicle, my dad’s classic Model T Ford. It had been dark for about a half-hour. We pulled up to the cabin and the front door was wide open. I had never seen the expression that came over my dad’s face before. His eyes were wide and he looked like he was ready to kill someone.
He was. He knew what was inside the house and he knew his wife was probably outnumbered. My dad threw open the driver's side door and ran to the trunk of the Ford. He flung it open and when I looked back, he was holding a crossbow with a silver arrow inside it. My dad began strapping silver-tipped daggers in any place his pants would hold.
He looked at me and said, “Lock the door of the car. Under no circumstances do you leave this vehicle.”
I locked the door. I was confused and my adrenaline was going. You see, I was a big kid at twelve. And if my mom was in trouble, my dad demanding me to stay in the car wasn’t going to happen.
Shaking my head, I jumped out of the car. “If mom’s in trouble I’m going in there too.”
“No, you’re not!” My dad barked at me.
“I’m going.” I insisted.
“Son, I don’t have time for this.” My dad shook his head and handed me two silver daggers and said, “If you puncture them through the heart you will injure them. That will be good enough for now.”
“What else can I do to them?” I whispered as my dad and ran to the front of the house.
“If you cut their head completely off, you will destroy them forever.”
I was thinking, “Who the fuck were these people?”
I didn’t care, my adrenaline was through the roof. My dad and I ran into the cabin. What I saw was something out of a horror film. My mother had permanently injured three of these weird, pale looking guys. They looked human to me. Each one of them had a dagger deep in its heart and was suffering lying on the floor.
“I was able to defeat all three of them,” my mom said to my dad.
“Amazing work, is this all of them?” my dad seemed pleased.
“I’m sure of it. It’s been nearly ten minutes since I was able to cripple these assholes. So, if they had more guys, they would have come in before my partner showed up.” Then my mother noticed me standing there holding a dagger in each hand.
“What the hell is this, John? Why does Todd have weapons in his hands?”
“He is more stubborn than you are. He insisted on coming inside to help you.”
My mom looked at me and smiled. She had blood all over her hands and sleeves. I had no clue what the hell had just happened in my life. I was in a room with three seriously injured men on the floor and my parents were acting like they did this kind of thing for a li
ving.
What I found out was they used to do this full time. Until I was born. Then they both decided to settle down and they took normal jobs.
On that particular night some of their enemies from years past, had caught up with them at the cabin. My mom was apparently one badass vampire hunter. She took out three elite vampires all on her own.
“What happened to them?” Marlene asked.
“What happened to who?” I asked.
“You said, the vampires were still alive. What did your parents do with the bodies?”
“My parents told me to go outside and wait in the locked car. About five minutes later, they told me to return to the cabin. When I reentered the cabin there was no sign of the vampires. No blood anywhere. No dust. There was nothing.”
“How did they get rid of the bodies so fast?”
I was quiet because I knew I would be exposing a secret. Not only about my parents, but also about myself. I wasn't sure how to exactly say it without it sounding crazy. But then again, we were talking about my parents being vampire hunters all the while I was presently a vampire. So, sharing this detail would probably sound just as crazy as anything else. “If a vampire is decapitated, cut clean off at the neck the vampire and all its remains including blood that was dripped disappear.”
Marlene looked at me and nodded her head. She clearly was trying to wrap her head around what I just told her. “What happened next, Todd?”
“We went home and my dad secured the house in a way that would make Fort Knox jealous.”
“Okay. You were twelve years old,” Marlene said. “Did your parents tell you everything about their former career once you witnessed what you did at the cabin?”
“No, they really didn’t. They told me I had to keep it a secret. Couldn't tell anyone. I wish they had explained everything. I don’t think I would have allowed certain things to happen the way they did.”
“Which things?” Marlene asked.
“Well, the main thing. I would never have allowed that man, who had visited me in my hospital room, do what he did to me. It was too late before I realized what was happening. I had already drunken his blood.”
“So what happened between the night at the cabin and the day we first met?”
I looked at Marlene and smiled. “Not much. I was a regular high school kid and they were school teachers just as they had been before.”
“So, when you came home and found them dead. That came out of nowhere? There were no signs that led up to it. You said your dad had your house like Fort Knox. How was anyone able to enter the house and kill them?”
“At the time I discovered my parents, I didn’t know. What I found out later was they let the killer in.”
“When did you find that out?”
“Later on in the week.”
“We are talking about some week here, aren’t we?” Marlene grinned awkwardly.
“We sure are.”
I exhaled and said, “So fast forward from the night at the cabin to me discovering my parents dead the night after I spent all day in a disgusting out-of-order gas station bathroom.”
Suddenly I was taken out of my memory by Jason. Josiah's son entered the kitchen.
I looked up at him and smiled. Although we looked like we were only a year apart physically, I was over fifty years older than this kid. I found out he had recently been turned as I got to know everybody.
“Were you sleeping?” Jason asked.
“I'm taking a break from the monitors. I needed to close my eyes for a moment.”
Jason nodded his head and smiled. “Staring at those monitors does seem monotonous at times. It's a wonder you can keep your eyes open at all.”
I looked at Jason and knew the kid was on the spectrum. He was different than his brother in so many ways. His brother was a hothead who tended to get himself into sticky situations. While Jason seemed very loyal to his dad and from what I could tell Josiah sought his council as if he were a vampire who had hundreds of years of knowledge to draw upon.
“Can I ask you a question, Jason?” I asked.
“Uh, sure, Todd,” he said.
“Are you and your brother close?”
“Close?” Jason pondered the question for a moment. “We are twins and it's hard to deny that fact. Joshua is a wildcard and we all know it. I know it more than others. He seems to walk to the beat of his own drum.”
“Were you afraid for him when he fought in those death matches?”
“I knew he would live through it, but I wasn't sure what the experience has done to his overall temperament. Losing our mom was extremely hard on Joshua. We both grieved in entirely different ways. He fought his demons physically, and I fought them internally.” Jason stopped himself from talking. “It's 4:00 pm, you have two hours left. I'm heading back to sleep.”
Chapter Fourteen
After watching Jason take his place in the living room, a peace came over me and I knew another vision was coming. I closed my eyes and let it come. My aura took over my body and I just let the vision happen.
I could see into a bedroom where Lena was giving birth to one of the twins, with Josiah by her side. Josiah looked to be at least 10-15 years younger than he was when I had met him. He ages at half the pace of humans, so I figure this had to have happened around 20 to 25 years ago.
“Where have you been?” Lena screamed at Josiah at the top of her lungs.
“I’ve been right here in the room,” Josiah answered.
“Josiah, something is very wrong with me.” Lena cried out between pained breaths.
“I know,” Josiah answered. “I’m going to try to heal you. Close your eyes.”
Lena appeared to be in a lot of pain. She was sweating profusely and her breathing was ragged. Josiah placed his hands over her upper body. He closed his eyes and tried to heal her. He did this for about a minute, and nothing happened. Lena screamed as if she was in even more pain.
Josiah seemed frustrated that he wasn't able to heal his wife. Fear spread across his face.
“Lena,” Josiah said. “Open your eyes and look at me.” Lena’s eyes didn’t open. “Holy shit! This can’t be happening!” Josiah yelled out.
“We are going to have to perform a Caesarean!” The doctor called out to the nurses in the room.
Josiah let out a big sigh. “Do what you need to do. Please make sure each of them is safe!”
The doctor and the nurses were in position to perform the C-section on Lena.
I assumed this was when Jason and Joshua had been born.
Within minutes, the first of the two boys was removed from her belly.
“That’s Joshua,” Josiah said.
Josiah looked at his child as he left through the door in the nurse’s arms. Lena was passed out and I wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. I didn't think Josiah, or the doctor knew either.
As the doctor tried to pull the second child out there seemed to be a problem.
“His umbilical cord is wrapped around his neck two times,” one of the nurses yelled out.
I looked down as Josiah and I watched the two nurses carefully unwrap the cord from around Jason’s neck. As they were removing Jason, something unusual happened. As Jason was being picked up, his tiny hand touched the right outside Lena's body. As the tiny baby touched his mother, a supernatural feeling took over the room. A tiny, glowing light glowed off Jason's hand. The touch of his hand lit up Lena’s body like a glowworm. The nurses tried to remove Jason from Lena’s body, but they couldn’t move him. The magic seemed to be holding him to his mother.
Josiah yelled out, “Let him be! He’s healing her.” This went on for about a minute, and then the glow from Lena’s body went out.
The nurses finally removed Jason from Lena’s body. Within seconds, Lena’s entire body was healed. Even the C-section incision had disappeared.
Josiah took a step back, trying to take in what had happened. Then he stepped forward toward Lena. She opened her eyes and saw Josiah. “Josiah, wh
at happened?”
“You’re okay, that’s what happened. Something miraculous occurred in this room and you have your youngest son to thank for it.”
“My youngest?” Lena asked.
“Yes, they both have been delivered. It was a Caesarian operation, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at you.”
“Let’s clean you up and put you into a fresh bed,” one of the nurses said.
“Are they healthy, Jo?” Lena asked anxiously.
“They are amazing,” Josiah said to Lena. “They are two of the most beautiful babies I have ever seen.”
“Can I see them?” Lena asked.
Josiah looked at the two nurses who were holding Joshua and Jason and motioned for them to bring the children over to Lena. Josiah placed a pillow behind Lena’s head, so she could sit up. Josiah watched as the first nurse put Joshua in Lena's arms.
“This is Joshua,” Josiah said. Joshua had a blue tag on his toe.
“He’s so tiny.” Tears dripped from Lena's eyes. She appeared to be counting his toes and fingers.
“Don’t forget this guy.” The nurse had handed Jason to Josiah—he was wrapped in a blanket, with only his head peaking out.
Josiah handed Jason to Lena. “This is the reason why you’re pain free, sweetheart. Your son healed you on his way out.”
Lena looked at Josiah, surprised.
“How is that even possible?”
“Not exactly sure, all I know is that I couldn’t do it. Then this little bundle of joy was being removed, and he touched you–and the rest is history. It looked like something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with how you both lit up while he was healing you.”
Lena looked amazed, then she yawned from exhaustion. “I’m so tired.”
“Why don’t you get some rest, sweetie?” Josiah answered.
“I don’t want to give them back,” Lena said.