Believers
Mandy walked through the front door of her parents two story home. A stray redheaded toddler crawled across the foyer in front of her. Mandy picked up her little sister Jessica and looked into her sparkling greenish eyes. She balanced the girl on her hip and started walking towards the sound of what would seem like the roar of a small crowd at a stadium.
A hand shot out in the entrance, it was missing the first two fingers.
“Oh Uncle Louie!” Mandy slapped his hand down and walked into the living room.
About twenty of the Alison clan was packed into the room watching a prerecorded football game on the tv. It was their favorite team winning the Super Bowl last year, a cornucopia of snacks littered the coffee table and antique buffet hutch. Mandy grabbed a ham and cheese quarter sandwich slice off the hutch as she walked to the kitchen.
Aunt Marie promptly took Jessica off Mandy as she entered the kitchen, while Aunt Janine tapped Ester on the shoulder. Esther turned from the lamb stew on the stove and smiled warmly at her daughter.
“Mandy look at how thin you are! Are you not eating while you’re at college?” Her smile faded to sternness, “Do your father and I need to start sending you groceries from the farm?”
“No Mom,” Mandy walked over and hugged her mother tightly. “I’ve been working out a lot at the gym.”
“Working out?!?” Janine exclaimed. “Look at you, you’re just skin and bones now! Are you preparing for some kind of invasion of some sort? Don’t tell me when you say you’re fighting off the boys you’re doing it literally?” She squeezed the muscle in Mandy’s arm.
Mandy laughed at her Great Aunt.
“You need to eat more.” Mandy’s mother scolded, then turned back to the stew.
“Oh don’t you worry about that.” Mandy’s grandmother put her arm around Mandy and squeezed. “We’ll fill her up with good wholesome food and get her used to carrying a few extra pounds. She wont know how to live without them.”
“Oh Grandma!” Mandy complained.
“Oh hush up you.” Mandy’s Grandma squeezed again, “And come help your old grandma make some bread.”
After the meal was done the men were doing the dishes while the women sat in the living room and caught up. Mandy snuck outside with her Uncle Louie to sit on the porch while he smoked a cigar and watched the light fade from behind the endless gray clouds that loomed forever in the sky.
“You’re going to hunt them aren’t you?” Louie didn’t look away from the west.
Mandy didn’t answer, she just sat beside him.
“Carry Holy Water with you. Soak your arrows in it overnight two nights before the raid. You’ll wound the vamp so deeply it will be unable to fight, no matter where you hit it. Just be sure you get the arrow in, don’t just nick the thing and think it will be ok. It’s advisable to bathe in the stuff before you go out, but I don’t see how, you don’t have any priests in your group to bless the bathtub. We had Father Mike in our group, back before I got married and settled down. He moved out to California.”
Louie took a deep breath and looked at his niece, his favorite niece. “Do be careful. I know I wont stop you, I wont even try.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” She looked into his eyes.
“They think more than you do, and don’t react on impulses. If you ever think you outsmarted one of them, think again. Chances are he’s thought about it fifteen times already ahead of you, and that was before he even knew you existed. Don’t ever think you’re smarter than one, don’t make the mistake that you are faster than one. Never run. Stay and fight. The minute you turn your back you’re as good as dead. And one last thing, don’t taste their blood. Not even a drop. You will become just like them.”
“Is it an infection?” Mandy inquired.
“If it is, there is no known cure.” Louie looked back as the last bit of light escaped behind the gray drapery of clouds. “At least not after all these centuries.”
“I wonder if anyone has ever looked.” she glanced out as well.
“Maybe some scientist somewhere in some disease control center on some top secret government facility lab.” he took a puff off the cigar. “You never know.”