Chomp
Chapter 17: Red

It was a long time before I was able to leave the room.

As time passed and my strength slowly returned, I grew restless, wanting nothing more than to get up and walk around. Even if it was just a few hallways away. To be honest, I didn’t even know if there were hallways; I still had no memory of being brought in here, and I highly doubted I walked myself in. For all I knew, this room was the only one in the place.

Even the bathroom was still technically in the same room; the only thing that separated me and whoever was watching over me was a purple, paisley curtain that looked like it had seen better days.

It made for awkward conversations.

But at least I was able to have conversations. I think if Jess, Yacob, and Doris never visited, I would have gone insane long ago. I would have liked to have my parents see me, but no one was able to give a straight answer as to where they might have been. The closest I had ever gotten was ’It’s really bad out there, but I’ll try.’

Jess had said it weeks ago.

It was difficult to understand what ’bad out there’ really meant. I remembered seeing the news at home—about the protest going sour—but my mind had gone foggy from there. In the hours of the day that I was alone, my imagination wandered, drawing from old comics I used to read: crumbled buildings, an apocalyptic city setting. It made me feel sick, and my heart squeezed in my chest anxiously.

Regardless of what might have been going on, all I could do was hope Tanya, Bryan, and Agnes were all still safe at home.

It was hard to tell what time of day it was, but my body told me it was probably morning; I felt awake, but couldn’t do much about it. I was mid-way through Wuthering Heights—for the eighth time—when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I yelped excitedly, jumping to my feet and tossing the book down onto the bed. I was ridiculously desperate for interaction.

The smell of Yacob through the door cheered me up—something I never thought possible until I was stuck in this place. He pushed the door open gently and poked his head through. “I thought you might have been sleeping, Samuel,” he said softly, stepping through the frame. He shut the door behind him. “On the contrary, you seem quite alert and awake.”

“Well, I am bored,” I admitted. “But… I like company—especially company that tells me I can finally go home.”

He chuckled to himself. “What? Not a fan of my daughter’s cottage? She made the curtain there herself, you know. Maryanna did love to crochet…”

I blinked. “You had a daughter? But I thought…” My voice trailed off, bemused. I must have missed something here.

“Go on, Samuel. Or would you prefer I call you Sam?”

I shrugged, brows furrowed. “Sam’s fine. And… I thought that the whole Cainist thing meant you were born a vampire. Doesn’t that mean it’s impossible for you to have a daughter?”

He smiled demurely, and took a seat on the bed without an invitation. I supposed an old man like him earned the right. “Walk me through your thinking.”

“Well… I was told that vampires can’t reproduce,” I stated, looking down on him. It was an awkward feeling, not one I enjoyed for the conversation, so I took a seat on the chair beside my bed. “The… Well, I guess it’s a disease… Anyway, the disease ruins the reproductive organs, so if that’s right, you shouldn’t be able to have a daughter. Unless you meant you adopted her?”

Yacob shook his head, but his pale blue eyes remained locked on mine. “My flesh and blood. And you’re half right with the facts there.”

“Half?”

“I suppose we’ll have a lesson for today before I ask something of you. Does that sound fair?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. I still wasn’t sure whether or not I could trust him, but if he wanted something from me, there was a chance I could leave the room.

“Sure.”

“Well, let’s start with your earlier assessment, shall we?” He sounded as though I had much say in the matter. “Let’s start with the fact that you mentioned it being a disease. What do you know about diseases?”

I really wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say; I wasn’t a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, so my knowledge was limited to what the Canadian and American public school systems had bothered with.

“Next to nothing,” I replied.

“Well, that’s not very true, is it? I’m sure your teachers haven’t failed you that much. You’ve probably learned about symptoms, mutations, group immunity, carriers, and all that.”

“Sir, I… I think you’re overestimating my education.”

“Well, let’s start with immunity then, shall we? I take it you’ve heard of HIV,” he says plainly, looking over his glasses at me.

The term made me feel a little uneasy, and I hoped he wasn’t trying to tell me I was positive—because I certainly wasn’t when I left the house. “Yes, of course.”

“Well, as you’re probably aware, it is a sexually transmitted disease that affects both men and women. Oddly enough, the disease does nothing for a vampire, and though they can spread it, that’s neither here nor there. Tell me, Sam. Do you know what happens when babies are born to a woman with HIV?”

“Well, I’d imagine they’d also have the disease,” I replied. “Or at least… Maybe get it from the mom if she breastfeeds?”

“Correct,” Yacob said, clapping awkwardly as if he had just seen someone finish below par at a golf game. “See, you know more about this than you thought. Now—this part, you may not know. Is it possible for a child, whose mother was infected with HIV before or during her pregnancy, to remain negative despite being breastfed?”

“I…” His questions were oddly specific, and I wasn’t seeing the connection between HIV and vampirism. In fact, the comparison was getting more and more alarming. “Yes…?”

“Also correct. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“It’s odd, but most creatures, whether the process is common or not, have the ability to gain immunity from certain diseases if their parent contracts it first. In a way, the foetus mutates to accommodate for the illness.”

“But what does all of this mean?” I asked, still lost. HIV. Vampirism. Foetuses. It was all falling on ears that were far too stupid to comprehend or connect all of it.

Yacob must have realized that it wasn’t getting through to me, because he took a deep, heavy sigh. “It means, those who have the genome from the virus in their blood naturally are able to reproduce. As you’re well aware, my father was Cain himself—the very first vampire, who was ultimately human, and able to reproduce. Those who Cain blooded—those are the ancestors of the vampires unable to reproduce. You and I, however, have a very different story.

“You might not have clued into this, but I can assure you. You were never blooded, never changed by some feral vampire in the middle of the night because your human parents didn’t keep an eye on you. No, Sam. Your parents—both of them—were vampires. I believe Martha doted on you and your brothers far more than the average mother because, for the first few years of her new life, she believed she was doomed to a barren life. Imagine her surprise when you were born.”

His words were slow, careful, and measured, but it was as if he was speaking a mile a minute, dumping far too much important information on me all at once. Like my mother’s name—or that I had had brothers. My heart pounded in my throat, and my eyes stung a little.

“S-S-Slow down,” I managed, my voice a squeak. “This is all—can you—”

“All in due time. I can try to answer anything you’d like about your parents, though I can’t promise I know everything. I lost touch with my brother after he moved North. But that will have to be for another day.”

“But—”

“Another day,” Yacob repeated firmly. “The lesson is over. But now that you’re a little more educated on the subject, I’d like to ask you something.”

Two minutes of a conversation about vampire reproduction and he was expecting me to be an expert. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I let someone down. “O-Okay…”

“Knowing what you know now, do you think it’s important for there to be more Cainists?”

“Well I think there are enough people in the world, human or vampire,” I murmured, not sure where he was going with this. “Seven billion is kind of a lot for the world…”

“Ah. I suppose the news reports haven’t made their way in here yet.”

His words turned my blood cold. “W-What?”

“To put it gently, these past few weeks have not been kind to the population—of either side. There have probably been quite a few casualties even as we started speaking, and not just in New York. But I’ll ask again. Do you think it’s important for there to be more Cainists?” His voice was more insistent rather than concerned or upset, and it scared me.

“What the hell kind of question is that?” I yelped, getting to my feet. “People are dying and you’re concerned with—with vampires fucking?!” Despite my rage, the word still felt bitter on my tongue. But I wanted nothing more than to hit him. “My parents are out there—probably hiding in their basement—and you’re here, telling me—”

“Calm down, boy,” Yacob boomed. His body might have looked frail, but his voice had power. “You’re too far behind the times to make any sort of statements. What makes you think your parents are even still alive?”

He was right.

All I had to go on was Jess’s words, something completely open and non-direct. ’I’ll try.’ She was trustworthy enough, but how hard would it have been to locate two people?

“…Are they…?” I asked slowly.

Yacob stared at me, his expression unchanging. His blue eyes still held that awful twinkle in them, like he knew he was better than anyone in the room at all times. His lips were still drawn in a composed smile despite the outburst, despite the serious subject matter.

My blood boiled in my veins, and I couldn’t stop it. Before I knew what was happening, I rushed at Yacob, grabbing him by the neck in one hand. I slammed him against the wall, causing dust from the ceiling to rain down on us. Holding him firmly by his neck above my head, I snarled. “Tell me!”

My voice came out sounding guttural, almost inhuman. Well, I supposed it wasn’t human. I felt my nails dig into the sides of his throat, beads of blood forming at them; the beads quickly turned to thin streams, and they followed my tensed arm downward. Yacob’s choking sounds continued for a full minute before I eased the pressure.

Though he might not have been able to die, he sure as hell could feel pain.

He coughed and sputtered, no doubt in as much shock as I was on the inside. This wasn’t who I was. Something had taken hold of me, something far fiercer than my little mousey self.

“Was the demand unclear?” I hissed, forcing more pressure onto him again.

His eyes bulged and his voice crackled, like he was trying to speak. I released my grip on him completely, causing him to slide down the wall and hit his ass against the floor with a loud thud. I waited while he wheezed, trying to catch his breath. It took him a minute, but his coughs quickly turned into…

Was that laughter?

Yacob wiped his hand against his neck and examined the blood. For some reason, his smile had returned, and he continued to snicker.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, glaring and ready to pounce again.

His gaze was transfixed to the blood he rubbed between his fingers, as if he hadn’t bled in centuries. Suddenly, his eyes snapped over to me and locked on mine. His expression had changed, part intrigued, part elated. “Oh, nothing. Toulouse would just be very proud to see what his son had become!”

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