We pulled up to a large multi-level house, the driveway wrapped around the left side of the house to a garage tucked out of sight from the road. It had a dark, sprawling mansion look as it sat dimly lit in the night, surrounded by trees at the edges of the property. Carter stopped just short of the garage door and hit a button above his head in the driver's seat. The massive garage door started rising out of sight. The vehicle eased forward and nestled into the right side of the three-car garage.
Carter's home was impressive. Its size and style said wealth. It had an older look to it, like it had been built long ago, yet newer features were wrapped around the old structure. He lived in West County, one of the wealthier areas of St. Louis. I wondered what kind of day job he had to afford all of this, or if it was inherited. There weren't really any houses in sight, only small lights through distant trees. It was very secluded.
The four of us got out as the garage door closed behind the Suburban. There was a side door that led into the house that began to swing open. A woman with long, dark hair greeted Carter with a smile.
"Dinner's ready. How'd everything go?" she asked, as the scent of cooked meats poured out from behind her.
"There were… complications." Carter motioned back to me, "Do we have room for one more?" He asked enthusiastically.
She looked surprised, spotting me behind Wayland and Frank. She cocked her head to the side as she looked back at Carter. She was pretty for an older woman. Well, she wasn't "old," just older than me. She looked very much in shape. They all looked in prime physical condition, except Frank. He wasn't fat. He was just larger, with more meat on his bones.
"Things didn't go as planned. The tip wasn't bad, but there were three of them."
"Yeah, there was three of them," Frank emphasized, patting my shoulder again, "thanks to Sam here."
She got severe, looking only at Carter, "Later?"
He nodded.
She stepped down the step into the garage to greet me, "It's nice to meet you, Sam. I'm Eleanor, and you are more than welcome to join us."
"Thank you." I tried not to talk too much; it was hard enough, just being near them.
I felt the monster clawing within, prying at the seams to escape, to kill. Being around this many live human beings was proving to be much more difficult than I had anticipated. I started having doubts. So, I just tried to focus on what I hoped to gain and held on.
We all walked through the side door and into their house. The inside was huge and low-lit. There were a lot of dark colors that flooded the spaces, unlike most bright white and beige homes you saw most of the time. The floors were smooth hardwood that stretched the entire expanse of the house. The only carpet I saw was on a set of stairs on the other side of the living room, which reached up to the next floor. It smelled great, and I could sense candles burning randomly throughout some of the darker, unoccupied rooms of the house. The living room was just through a small hallway that came from the garage. It was massive, ten times bigger than the place I lived out of at the factory. There was a large grey stone fireplace in the center of the living room. Massive windows lined the front of the house that looked out to the front of their property, creating a view that you wouldn't believe. It reminded me more of a millionaire's hunting lodge in the wilderness than a family home. We turned left out of the hallway and into the dining room.
We walked into the dining room that housed the biggest, darkest oak table I had ever seen. People were already sitting there. The large wooden table sat fourteen chairs, and, once the others sat, only two remained empty. All of them looked up at me, confused and mildly surprised at my unannounced arrival.
"Hey, everyone," Carter said casually, gathering their attention, "this is Sam. He'll be joining us tonight."
They all eyed me with fresh curiosity, but then tried to be polite and not stare for too long, nodding my way and turning back to Carter.
Carter started making introductions, "Sam, this is my wife Eleanor, whom you met already."
She smiled and nodded towards me again, "Welcome."
I just nodded politely, trying to act like a shy human who had just had their world shaken and was awaiting answers. If they were all in the loop about these… vampires… then they would expect me to be frazzled.
He continued, "This is my sister Clara, and her husband Wayland, whom you also met."
Clara was tall and looked sharp, stronger, and more dangerous up close than the other women. She had light features like Carter but was grinning like Frank. I imagined that she had been hunting with her family all her life. She had a certain… confidence about herself that I could feel without her even speaking.
Frank jumped up and scooted down a seat to make room for me between him and Wayland. Somehow, he had already grabbed two beers, one for him and me. Frank motioned for me to sit while Carter continued. They were very inviting… it was… familiar.
"Frank," he pointed to his older brother. He was already helping himself to the food and spilling it in slops and chunks between the serving plates and his seat. It made me laugh on the inside.
There was an empty chair at the end that Carter skipped over and then started on the other side, "This is Sarah and Bartley Wicklow, and their son Patrick."
Wicklow? That was a strange name. I wondered how they were related to Carter's family. They were very dark featured. Patrick seemed close to my age, maybe a little younger, and he seemed a little territorial. When he looked directly across the table at me, I got a feeling that he didn't like my being there. He had brown hair that I thought was a little too long for a guy to have. It was pulled back into a short ponytail behind his head. He judged me from across the table with his annoyed, brown eyes. The next introduction told me why.
"This is my daughter Autumn," Carter smiled.
"Hi," she smiled.
She was stunning. Her dark brown hair was tied into a loose bundle behind her head, with a few strategic strands coming down around her face. It was so dark that it almost looked black in the low-lit room, but I could see the dark brown as the light bounced off. She had a deep brown set of eyes that stared into mine from across the table. She was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt that looked dressy. It made me think she had just come from something important before this family dinner. I caught myself staring for a moment, unable to take my eyes out of the trance they were in. She definitely favored her mother, Eleanor, more so than Carter.
"Sam," I barely returned.
I quickly regained control and kept looking down the line as Carter spoke.
"This little girl is Delilah. She is Clara and Wayland's daughter."
"I'm five," she told me with authority, holding up an open hand. She had blue eyes and little blond curls that were the epitome of innocence.
Autumn smirked and tickled her little cousin's neck. They seemed more like sisters than cousins.
I actually smiled. Delilah was adorable, but dangerous. She was pulling something out of me, the thoughts I kept hidden from even myself. The ones I kept buried. I gritted my teeth and smiled on through the introductions.
"Last but certainly not least, Shelta. This is Bartley's sister," Carter finished on the last woman with short, dark hair. She was quiet, just giving me a quick smile. She looked focused on something far off in her mind.
I felt like they were all waiting for me to say something. So, I tried to seem reasonable, "Thanks for having me here."
That's all I could come up with. What an idiot! That was the most generic thing you could have possibly said.
Thankfully, Carter kept going, "It's not often that we have visitors, so I'll tell you all what's going on. We ran into three vampires tonight. The tip I got from Martin turned out to be real. We found them at that warehouse off of Jefferson Avenue." He turned his gaze to Bartley, "That same one we've been suspecting as a den."
Bartley nodded in understanding, not needing to say more.
"We were watching them about to walk right into our kill zone." He looked at me, "Then, we saw someone else there. Sam had wondered right in the middle of where we were going to engage them, so we had to change our plans. They saw him first and flocked to him."
Frank laughed heartily, "Yeah, but this guy didn't budge. You should've seen it. He was standing toe to toe with those three assholes, and it looked like he was about to fight 'em."
They all occasionally glanced at me as the story unfolded. I connected eyes with Autumn a few times before we both looked away. She looked shocked. Probably wondering what was wrong with me, and why I hadn't run from the impending doom. She would never know why I wasn't running. None of them could.
I tried to play it off, "I wasn't really sure what was going on. I thought it was just a couple of drunks looking for trouble," I downplayed. "They were talking kind of funny. I couldn't really understand what they were saying."
Damn, I was good at just making this shit up on the fly. I had become a good liar. Whenever I got caught in situations where I absolutely had to talk to humans, I had to have a story. It was rare, but I had to think on my feet.
"The plan had fallen apart quickly. I got knocked down, and Wayland was engaging another. Frank was taking care of the last one, too far away to do anything about the one who rushed me. That's when Sam killed one all by himself," Carter finished, pointing towards me as he talked to the others.
It was subtle, but there was visible shock mixed with some kind of intrigue. I guess it really wasn't that easy to kill a vampire if you were untrained, as Carter had said.
Patrick scoffed, "Really? And how exactly did he do that?" I could sense an undertone of jealousy in his voice. His eyes looked even more irritated at me as he glanced my way. His little black ponytail flicked around behind him as he bobbed his little head around while talking with his emotions. He annoyed me… and the monster inside. I felt Its irritation and attention shift towards Patrick. A grumble rolled through the inside of my mind.
This guy seemed to have a real problem with me. Maybe he hadn't ever killed a vampire? Perhaps he wasn't allowed to hunt. Was he too young? He didn't look like Carter, Frank, or Wayland. Not physically trained like the Chasse family. Shit, Clara could beat his ass and make him like it if she wanted to.
Did she hunt? Autumn? She looked fast, agile, not as strong as her Aunt Clara, but still trained like the rest of them. It was something in her eyes. They were very dark, especially towards the center. When I looked at them, it was like a deep hole, darker the further you went. She looked back.
We both glanced away quickly. She had a different look from Patrick. She seemed more concerned. How could she be concerned for me? If she knew what I was, she wouldn't be. Something in her eyes looked like… recognition, or familiarity, maybe. Like she was waiting for something bad to happen.
Carter ignored Patrick and told the rest how it happened. He explained the events precisely as they happened, how I stabbed the bald one in the chest with the silver blade, and everything we did to the bodies before leaving the scene. Everyone nodded in approval like they were checking off boxes in their minds.
"He wants to know more, and I've offered to teach him as long as that's what he wants," Carter told them.
Patrick looked annoyed. I laughed inside, but the monster, deep below, wanted to reach across the table and rip his throat out. An image of his head flopped back, and his trachea missing, pouring blood down his chest and onto his plate, entered my mind. I fought off the feeling.
They all looked at me. Bartley spoke for the first time, "Is this what you really want? Once you know what kind of threats are out there, there is no going back. You'll never see the world the same as you used to." He spoke in a serious but cautious tone.
I already didn't see the world as I used to, and this was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to learn, absorb, and discover everything that they knew. I hoped to figure out if they knew what I was, but I couldn't just be direct and say, 'Hey, what kind of monster am I?' That wouldn't end well. So, I would wait, bide my time until I discovered what secrets their family held.
"I don't see it like I used to, now. I'd rather be prepared," I said to all of them.
Bartley, Shelta, and Sarah all nodded at Carter. It seemed they agreed with him. I didn't realize it at first, but he was receiving approval from the entire family to let me into their world. Well, he was getting permission from the older members. I guess Frank and Wayland were already on board.
Eleanor spoke up, "That's enough hunting talk for now. Let's eat before it all gets too cold," she said, waving her hands to the food between us all. Everyone abided.
The food was passed up and down the table, and everyone dug in. I mostly sat in silence, trying to decide what food to put on my plate now that it had grown so foreign to me. I could still eat and digest like normal, but I didn't have to. Whatever the beast gained when it was rampaging always satiated any hunger or thirst I had. I didn't think I would ever truly need food or water again. Anything I ate or drank now was purely for my own tastes, not for nutrients. I like things that are really salty or sweet, one extreme or the other.
The meat was the only thing I knew I could get down, so I put a few pieces of smoked brisket on my plate. Then I put a few small items on there just for show.
The next part was hard. They wanted to get to know me.
"So, Sam…" Clara spoke, "Is St. Louis, where you grew up?"
"No, actually, I was born in Texas." I never thought anyone could make connections to a dead man from over two years ago, seeing as how I was sitting in front of them, alive.
"Really," Eleanor joined in, "you don't have an accent."
"No, I don't think I ever really did. Whatever I had, I lost when I moved. After high school, I got a job at a construction company and went wherever they sent me."
I kept my occupation in the same realm. I stuck to what I knew, just in case anyone asked any specifics. This way, I would know what I was talking about.
"It shows," Frank added between bites, not even looking up from his plate.
I was pretty stout even before I was transformed, but after I changed, my human body grew in massive strides. I probably weighed about two-twenty, solid muscle. In my normal human form, I was far more potent than any man or monster so far. That vampire didn't feel any different under my power than the human criminals I had killed.
Maybe it was the silver bomb. Carter had said that it was a poison to them. However, my monster was another story. My strength was immense, bestial, and unstoppable. I never knew of anything that could match it.
I could see Autumn peering through the corner of her eye as she ate, looking for herself to see what Frank meant. Her eyes ran up my arms, my chest, and then to my face. She glanced away quickly, trying not to be seen as I glanced at her. My senses were sharper and all worked together more seamlessly and potently than theirs, so I could read her with just a glance.
It made me feel good. The possibilities whirled in my mind…
What was I doing? I knew I couldn't have anything like that. It was all the time I had spent by myself starting to get to me. That had to be it! I had to snap out of it or get the hell out of there!
"How old are you, Sam?" Carter asked.
"Twenty-six," I said.
"So, you're just a few years older than Autumn and Patrick. They're both 23. They go to St. Louis University."
Autumn was still looking down, a slight shade of red that was likely unnoticeable by anyone except me. I focused my hearing on her heartbeat. It was pulsing at a quick tempo. Was it still from the embarrassment of being caught looking at me, or was it something else? Fear maybe? Could she sense something? But how could she know anything about me?
Patrick's heartbeat was also erratic. I knew why he was distressed. He didn't like me, especially now that he knew I was close to the same age as he and Autumn were. He thought I was just another guy, more competition.
Then I realized that these two families couldn't actually be related. Yet, they seemed so close, like a family would be. Maybe it was built on the hunt. Friends who were so close they joined together as a family, with no real blood ties.
We made small talk, they asked pretty specific questions about my life, but I just stuck to the script. I modified whatever I had to, to keep it believable, but it all went off without a hitch. I was monitoring their heartbeats as we spoke, determining if my lies were suspected of being just that. No one seemed to notice.
They were friendly, caring, and kind. It was quite a shocker to be honest, when you took into account the brutal violence I witnessed three of them capable of. Even if it was against a monstrous creature… it still took something inside to be able to do that one minute, and then come and have dinner the next. They welcomed me into their home the very night they had met me. Feelings I hadn't felt in a long time were crawling out of the dark corners of my soul, where they had taken refuge. I never felt this way anymore: accepted, liked, and wanted. They did want me there, even if at the moment it was just to be another hunter.
We had all finished eating, and the Wicklow family was gathering their belongings and heading toward the living room. I shook Bartley, Shelta, and Sarah's hands. Patrick wasn't with them. He was already by the front door.
Autumn and Patrick had gotten up from the table a few minutes before everyone else. They were having a conversation near the door, and it didn't look like Patrick was happy. Autumn looked like she didn't want to deal with it, but she tried to listen. I tried not to eavesdrop on them. For some reason, I felt like I should give her privacy. Plus, I was too wrapped up in this strange family and the secrets they knew.
"It was very nice to meet you, Sam. We are all very much looking forward to getting to know you more," Shelta said, still holding a far-off look in her eyes. It was like her mind was somewhere else.
"Thanks. Me too," I said, seeming as regular as the next guy.
"Oh, it's nothing. If Carter thinks you're worth bringing home, then so do we," Sarah added.
Bartley just nodded and agreed. He didn't seem like a big talker. He would speak if he had something important to say.
I nodded. We said goodbye, and they all left through the front door. Patrick trailed out last after having an awkward-looking moment with Autumn. I wasn't fully paying attention to them; I was listening to Carter, but I think there was a small argument. She was looking down, shaking her head while he spoke to her with a desperate strain on his face. He left in a huff and closed the door a little too hard behind him.
Autumn looked annoyed and paced off to the other side of the house. I turned my hearing to track her movements. She bounded up the stairs and turned left, walking all the way across the second floor. She entered a room and slapped the door shut. I heard her bed frame squeak as she threw herself onto it. She definitely seemed annoyed with Patrick for whatever they had talked about. Now I wish I had listened in.
Why did I think these things? I had to stop. I can't have these things; I can't have a family. I'm a monster. I'd kill them. I had to remember that I left these things behind. I needed to just stay focused and look for answers.
Carter was talking to the rest of the Chasse family while I was saying goodbye to the Wicklows. Once they had left, he showed up at my side.
"Follow me. I want to show you something," Carter said.
I walked across their dark wood floor and down a flight of stairs, just opposite the carpeted stairs that Autumn had run up. We came down, and my eyes were trying to tune themselves to the darkroom, to see how I usually did, but I fought them. I couldn't have them turning black on Carter. He'd probably try to impale me on the spot.
He hit the switch, and the room lit up. This wasn't just a room. It was an armory. There were metal cages with guns, ammo, knives, swords, bows, crossbows, and all kinds of little trinkets made to kill. They were lined across almost every wall, fitted with workbenches to assemble, disassemble, and maintain the massive stockpile. A large area of the floor was equipped with wrestling mats. There was a series of machines and free weights in another large area of the sub-level. It looked like something you would expect to see in an action movie, not in a suburban household. I knew what this was… this was where they trained to fight monsters.
"Good Lord," I laughed in surprise.
Carter laughed.
Frank and Wayland were coming down just moments later.
"It's quite impressive, isn't it?" Wayland actually spoke aloud.
"Oh yeah. You could definitely say that. I've never seen so many guns in the same place."
Frank had brought the gear from the Suburban. He laid it out on a small workbench on the side of the room for cleaning.
"This is where we train, where we plan," he chuckled, "and obviously where we keep the guns." Carter looked across the room to the end of their small firing range, in the far-left corner of the room. There was a massive steel door that was embedded in the concrete wall. He continued, "That... that is our holding cell. Sometimes we bring things back here, to interrogate."
"Interrogate vampires?" I asked.
"Anything," he stated. He led us to the massive door and, after unbolting it, cracked it open.
I could tell that the room was directly underneath their garage. I walked in to find two massive cells. It was one big cell, but there was a wall of bars splitting the middle.
"The cell is constructed with silver. It keeps creatures disoriented and under control. They're too weak to fight back or escape. They can't even touch the bars. If we can get them here, they have no way to leave. We have to use this sometimes until we can get the information we need."
I didn't feel anything back at the warehouse when they set off the silver bomb or when I held the blade, and I didn't feel anything now.
"So, silver affects all monsters, then?" I asked, eyeing the metal cage.
"Yep," Frank answered. "It's the best weapon we got against 'em."
Interesting, because I felt fine. I wondered what would happen if I touched the bar. I hadn't seemed to be affected up to that point…
Why not?
I reached out and grabbed one of the bars. My heart jumped as I touched the cold metal. But, as I thought, I was fine. Why was I different? If I was a monster, then why didn't their universal weakness apply to me?
"Well, at least now we know you're no monster," Frank laughed, slapping my back again, actually shifting my stance.
I looked back at the three, they were all smirking. I laughed with them, only I was laughing at the irony.
We finished the quick tour and headed back upstairs. Once again, on the main floor, I could see all the way through their house's humongous open floor plan, in between the few structural walls that were standing. I heard the buzz of talking coming from the television. I looked across into the living room and saw Autumn sitting on the couch.
She had changed clothes while in her room. At dinner, she wore black dress pants and a button-up shirt. Now she was wearing some white and grey workout leggings and a grey tank top. I could see the straps of her bra falling off her left shoulder. The monster stirred, but I kept in control… barely.
Frank and Wayland stopped in the living room while Carter led me into a small library on the other side of the house. As I passed by Autumn on the couch, she turned and smiled.
The things it made me feel were… unexplainable. I felt something going through me that I had ruled out of my life, and the longer I kept pressing them, the more I was justifying it to myself. I began to want to feel them.
I tried to push back on the rush of emotions, I tried to seem normal. I don't think it was working.
As we came into the library, Carter asked, "Are you alright? You seem… stressed."
I wasn't okay. This was more than I should have allowed myself for one night. Autumn was too much of a temptation. I hadn't seen this coming. The things I thought when I looked at her were… not right. Not for me, anyway.
"I'm fine… it just," I couldn't even talk right. I was so distracted by the chaos that raged in my mind.
"It's a lot to take in, I know. I guess I've flooded you with too much already. You just seemed to be taking it all in stride before."
I steadied my thoughts and turned back into the cold, numb person I had to be. If I felt nothing, I could maintain. I just shut it all out and went blank.
"It's alright. It's just a lot to accept," I played the human as best I could.
"That's understandable. For tonight, I can drive you home and give you some time to think," Carter offered. "And then when you're ready, if you still want to know more, you're welcome to come back."
I nodded, "Alright." It was probably for the best.
Carter and I slipped out of the library and back down the hall that led to the garage. My resolve slipped, and I took one more agonizing look at Autumn. I could only see the back of her head, her dark brown hair that I could smell from across the room. I wanted to go back, but I knew I had to leave.
We snuck quietly into the garage, and he jumped into the driver's seat of his black SUV. I quickly pulled myself into the passenger seat before my senses picked up on anything else that would weaken my will to leave. It was too much, all of them. Being around that many beating hearts for too long made me weak, weaker than usual. I couldn't explain to myself what was happening. I thought I knew what I was doing.
We pulled out of the garage and onto the driveway. As we pulled forward, I could see the blinds of the front windows spread as Frank, Wayland, and Autumn heard us leaving. I wondered what she thought of me, I wondered what she thought about my quick exit.
You have got to stop! I screamed to myself in my mind.
"So, where am I going?" Carter asked.
Think… think. "I live down near Soulard, close to downtown."
This was good. I knew the traffic would be crazy downtown at this hour. The nightlife never stopped on the weekends. I could get him to let me out and act like I would walk the rest of the way. But, since I was in the car with him, I wanted to try and get some information since I fucking botched it at the house. I thought about my wording as we rode in silence.
"So, you said that you put 'anything' into your cells. What else is there besides vampires?" I asked.
He was quiet for a moment, probably trying to figure out the best way to word his answer without scaring me off from a life of hunting. I tried to contain my smirk.
He spoke, staring out into the darkness as he drove me into the city. "My family, we've fought all kinds of creatures over the years. There are too many to just tell you all at once, but we keep records. There are records from before I was ever born. Anytime we face something unusual, we always check our family history. Most of the time, we'll find something, but there have been a few times that I've added new entries myself," he explained. "So, I can't tell you what all is out there, but I can show you our books. We call them bestiaries."
I nodded, noting that piece of information. I wondered what all his family had seen.
"Usually, the things that we encounter are vampires. They are easily created, and they have one food source that presents a big problem for us. Blood. They have been the more prominent threat in St. Louis for decades."
"So, there's a lot of them out there?"
"Those three that we killed tonight were the first we've had to fight in a couple of months. Hunting in the city has been scarce for a while. The vampires we usually hunt are young ones that get careless and leave a mess behind. Once they leave a trail, we can track them," he said with confidence. "We actually have something we are starting to look into now, but we'll see what that turns into."
Curiosity was digging into me.
"What are a few other things you've seen?"
He continued making his way downtown as we talked, "I've fought shapeshifters, wendigo…"
I cut him off, "What's a wendigo?"
"It's a cannibalistic creature. They're pretty big and covered in white hair, usually soaked in blood. They tend to live in forests, in a pack of three or four. Wendigos used to be human, but they tasted human flesh too many times. There's a kind of blood ritual that requires consuming human hearts, that turns someone into a full wendigo," he explained.
"Ritual?" I asked, perplexed.
"Yeah, don't ask me how it works, though. There's always a shrine of human body parts somewhere near a wendigo den, where they turned themselves."
"Who does that to themselves?" I asked, confused. I couldn't understand why someone would want to be a monster like that.
"They don't fully realize what they are becoming, or they think it is only bringing them greater power, not making them lose themselves in the process. When someone has tasted another human's flesh too many times, a deep, primal instinct takes over. Then it's the ancient, animalistic part that drives them to complete their shrine and turn completely."
What in the fuck?
"So… they can turn into this monster whenever they want?" I was growing worried that this was soon to be my fate. Maybe I just hadn't eaten enough flesh yet. This was worse than anything I could have imagined. I would turn into some mindless cannibal.
"No. Once they turn, they can never come back. They're a full monster, never able to retake human form. They hide in forests, caves, and other hidden places after that. If it's a group of them, usually they turn on each other after there are no other humans left in an area."
Thank God. The relief was almost physical; I could feel all of my muscles relax out of the clench that they had flexed into.
We came to a stop. A bright red stoplight had halted the traffic right in the downtown area. This was my chance to bail.
"It's not far from here. I can just walk the rest of the way. I know the lights can be a nightmare down here," I said, taking off my seatbelt and opening the door.
"Are you sure? It's really not a problem."
"Really, I'm close by. I'll be there in like two minutes."
He pulled out a piece of paper, wrote down some numbers, and handed it to me.
"Here's my number. Take your time, process all of this, and call me when you're ready. Or stop by if you can remember how to get back," he said.
"I will."
He nodded, "Be safe, have a good night."
I shut the door as the light turned green, and he drove off with the traffic.
Finally, I was free. I took off running, trying to get away from the populated area. I had to get somewhere safe. The beast wanted out, and I didn't think I could stop now that there were no innocents for me to protect if It got out.