Chomp
Chapter 21: Red

The changes Yacob’s rebellion had brought weren’t easy to accept.

After our little incident, he had decided to allow me outside of the room where I had sat for weeks, but it was like I had emerged from a bubble to a different planet entirely.

Apparently when a brain regenerates, the vampire has to relearn easy things like walking and talking; Yacob explained it would be like riding a bike, in that I’d never truly forget everything.

Despite his words, I still had trouble remembering a few things, like how I had even gotten onto the street in the first place. It wasn’t something that desperately needed an answer, but it would have been nice to know why I had to regenerate my entire body.

Yet, in place of those memories were ones I never even remembered having before the accident. The round face and gigantic smile of a brunette with rosy cheeks came in and out many times. My memories slowly flooded back into my head with each passing day, and I learned that this was Martha Bordeaux, my mother.

A set of blond, teething twins that ran circles around me rushed back soon after remembering my mom. I was probably seven or eight, and they couldn’t have been more than three years old. Their faces were small, always filled with mischief, and their developing fangs looked far too big for their faces, giving them an adorably goofy appearance.

It took a while to recall their names; I hadn’t been told them like I had been with my mom’s, and they weren’t often said in my memories. But as I watched them for hours and hours in my sleep, each memory zipping through like a film playing behind my eyelids, they finally came to me.

Their names had been Francis and Samuel. The second sound struck me as odd when I heard my mom utter it; after all, that was my name. There wasn’t much I remembered when Bryan and Tanya found me, but I had distinctly remembered saying, ’Sam,’ when they called out to me. It only made sense that that was my name, didn’t it? What reason would I have had for giving them my brother’s name?

My confusion was easily answered when I saw the last day on earth for Martha, Francis, and Samuel.

It had been almost dinner time.

My mom was in the kitchen of our small cottage-like house, cutting up what looked like leeks for a roast. My olfactory senses told me it was pork with bits of pineapple pinned to it with toothpicks, surrounded by a few mini potatoes. I watched all of this from beside her, standing on a small footstool so I could wash a few more vegetables.

She must have noticed how quiet it was, so she looked down at me. “Can you please check on your brothers?”

“But I want to help!” I had complained. My voice was still high and childish at that point, unrecognizable.

She took one of the wet leeks from my hand and smacked my head with it. The frigid water that I had been washing it in ran down my back, sending a chill down my spine. “Go check on them, please. Remember what happened last time they were this quiet?”

Apparently I did, because I grumbled and jumped down from the stool. I walked past the kitchen into a quaint living room.

“Frankie, Sam, Mom thinks you guys are being bad because you’re not loud,” I laughed, looking around for them.

I spotted Sam first. He stood in the middle of the living room, a vacant expression on his face. His usually curly blond hair was matted on the one side, and he stood lifelessly, head downward. I had never seen either of them so still, and it alarmed me.

“Sam?” I called, a little unsure. “You okay?”

He turned his head slowly, like it was rusted metal. My heart jumped into my throat. The side of his head was misshapen and sopping wet with thick, crimson blood and grey brain matter.

“But… Fwankie… He no gets up…” he whispered, looking down at the ground again. “No ups… Why no ups?” A quick glance at where he was looking set my brain into a panicked frenzy. My other brother was sprawled on floor, his body in far worse condition than Sam’s.

My breath caught in my throat, and at first, it was all I could do to stare at my dead brother lying on the carpet.

“Mom!” I screeched finally, still unable to move. “Mom!”

Frankie’s head and neck had two massive, gaping holes in them. Blood poured out from each, staining the cream-coloured carpet; there were still tiny sporadic spurts from his neck, which made me think that whatever had happened had happened recently.

At the same time my mom ran into the living room, something zoomed past the already broken window and hit her square in the forehead. She barely had time to cry out as she fell to the ground.

Sam must have realized what had happened, because he burst into tears. “Momma!” he screamed, bawling as he waddled over to her. “I no like! I no like!”

My mom’s eyes had already started to glaze over, but she reached a hand out to him.

“Shh, Sam. Your brother… is going to take… take you somewhere safe,” she managed. Blood poured down from the crown of her head into her eyes and mouth, and she choked on some of it.

I felt my body go cold. This couldn’t be happening. Who would shoot at my little brothers, at my mom? I whimpered. “I’m scared, Mom…”

She coughed up more blood. “Just… go…”

Her tone was difficult to argue with. I grabbed Sam’s clammy hand, and pulled him from the gory room. He screeched and tried to yank himself from my grip.

“No go!” he wailed, tears spilling from his eyes. The blood from his own head was mixing with them. “I-I no go!”

“Sam!” I screamed at him. “We have to—Mom said we—”

A tiny red dot appeared on his already damaged forehead. He didn’t notice it, but I knew what it was. As quickly as my childish reflexes allowed, I jumped on top of him, pushing him onto the floor.

I knew the bullet had missed him when a loud crack rang through the room, making me shudder. My head felt like it was on fire, and I screamed as loudly as my lungs would allow. My vision had gone white, and I could barely see anything. The pain kept expanding through my head, and I writhed on the floor, willing my body to get up.

Sam needed me. I felt something beneath me squirm, remembering that I had fallen on him.

“S-Sam…”

“Bi’butha?” came his whimper.

“Sam, come here… Sam…”

There was a crashing sound that rung through my ears like a fiery hell. My lips trembled, but they were the only thing I was able to move. My vision had completely left me, but my ears remained ever faithful to my dying body.

I wished they hadn’t.

The sound of static on a radio came in spurts. Then, footsteps. “He’s not here. Over.”

It was a woman’s, though not one I recognized.

The radio went silent after her words, but not for long. “And everyone else?”

“Who dat? Who?” Sam’s curious voice sounded further away than it had been before.

“Sam…” The words might not have left my lips.

“Just one left,” the woman’s voice said sharply. “I’ll get rid of it. This whole night has been a bust.”

Sam…

There was a sound of metal scraping on metal. Sam’s shriek rang out like a bell, but I couldn’t call out to him. Then came a large thud, the metal withdrawing, and what sounded like a bucket dripping.

“Turning children… How disgusting.” Boots clunking on the kitchen floor, then pounding into something soft.

Sam…

Every night since, that memory haunted me.

I supposed it was because it had been gone from my mind for so long that it felt the need to send me night terrors. Countless nights, I woke up, sweating and terrified of what I had seen.

Murder; I had witnessed murders.

I realized after it was a vampire hunter, though as a child, all I could think of was that this was a monster. Realistically, they were one in the same. Vampire or not, they had killed a mother and two of her three sons. The only reason I was able to live through it was because the bullet that woman shot hadn’t completely destroyed my brain.

God only knew what the hell she did to Sam after I blacked out.

It was ghastly, to say the least. Jess would always come in to settle me down as much as she could; no doubt she couldn’t sleep through my screams from down the hall in her own room.

Yet, she never said a word about it. No complaints, no wishing that I could be a little quieter, only her embracing me gently as my heart steadied. The nightmare was always vivid, and it was always the same. I hated myself for waking her up over something that I should have been able to get used to.

“You’ll get better soon,” she whispered countless times, her arms wrapped around me tightly. The feel of her lips against my neck as she hugged me sent shivers down my spine.

“When?” I demanded, pulling away from her, confused by the feeling. “This’s gone on for what, five weeks straight?”

Jess smiled weakly. “Eight…”

I let out a frustrated sigh. “That’s even worse!” My eyes stung with angry tears, and I wiped them away. “This is stupid.”

“You had a very traumatic experience,” Jess pointed out gently. “Stuff like that sticks with you for a while, sometimes forever. Your brain regenerating is a process; it might remember everything, even stuff you’ve suppressed. Don’t get too hung up about it, Sweetie.”

“I can’t stop thinking about them.”

She knew this, of course—I had said it many times before—but she still pulled me back into another comforting hug anyway. Her chest felt almost cold against my skin. “You’re not supposed to forget them. You’re supposed to live for them, and for yourself. You’ve already lived for little Sam.”

I gave a pathetic little sob. “I guess so.”

She held me away and locked her eyes on mine. I felt her hand on my cheek as she caressed it gently, a confident smile on her lips.

“How about you start living for Adrian now instead?”

As per Yacob’s approval, I was finally able to go out into the ’real world.’ Jess had to accompany me everywhere—one of the conditions of me being allowed to leave—and she did her best to keep me updated with what was still what, and what had become something else.

But before I went around doing anything of importance, we had decided a little outing for some coffee would be an easy baby step.

“It doesn’t seem like much has changed,” I had pointed out on my first day, easing myself onto the side of the large fountain in the city square.

Jess raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” she asked softly. “Look around you. A lot has certainly changed, Sweetie.”

She wasn’t wrong. The bombs had done quite a bit of damage to the surrounding area, sending many buildings crumbling to the ground. Countless homeless roamed the streets in search of shelter and food. The roads themselves seemed to be packed with far more police than I had ever seen, but from the news that I was now allowed to hear, it was the same in every major city.

Yacob had convinced vampires everywhere—from his home in Jerusalem, Jess’s in Tokyo, my new home here in New York, and who knew where else—to rise in revolt all at once. I imagined most places were experiencing the same thing.

I fumbled to find the words to explain myself. “We’re still hiding. The only difference is that we’re not really good in the public eye… Instead of being blissfully unaware, people actually know about us. And… And they hate us.”

Jess looked down at her suede boots, a small frown forming on her plump lips. She tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear, and I couldn’t help but remember Yacob’s words. ’She’s a wonderful woman. Very beautiful, too.’

I took a sip from my coffee, feeling heat in my face. It was an odd time to remember those words.

“It’s not as though those changes are going to happen overnight,” she explained, her gaze still fixed away from me. “To implement change, we need time. That’s how Mister Osgoode explained it when he addressed a rally of people a few days ago. And it really does make sense. Do you know how long it took for the Chinese and Japanese immigrants to get rights when we moved over to build the railroad?”

I shrugged, not really sure if I completely agreed with the comparison between the two. After all, Chinese and Japanese immigrants weren’t ever accused of eating other humans—not that I was aware of, anyway.

“Well, a really long time,” she said, looking up at me. “I was lucky, because I obviously outlived my relatives that came over; they didn’t live to see the improvement because change can take a generation or two. Sometimes more.”

“I’d rather it didn’t…” I mumbled. A frown crept up onto my lips, and I knew I needed to correct myself. “Sorry. I guess that kind of sounded a little childish.”

Jess smiled softly, her almond-shaped eyes twinkling gently. “It’s fine. I understand your frustration, though. But we will see it eventually, as will the next generation of vampires.”

I laughed. “So Yacob explained the whole ’only some vampires can have kids’ thing to you, too? I mean… I can’t see there really being an actual ’next generation’ of vampires.”

I felt like biting my tongue as soon as the words left my lips.

“He… did,” she said, looking away from me. Her tone was strange, and I couldn’t quite place it. It occurred to me that it might be jealousy; as far as I knew, Jess wasn’t a Cainist, which meant she still probably couldn’t have children.

“Sorry—I didn’t mean to—I forgot…” I confessed awkwardly, yet again struggling to find my words. As per usual. “It was… insensitive of me.”

“Insensitive?” she asked curiously. The tone in her voice wasn’t unpleasant; it was closer to a slight surprise.

“I—yeah. I didn’t think you were Cainist, and I didn’t want to… I dunno… rub it in or anything? It was kind of rude-sounding, I guess.”

Jess stared at me long and hard, her narrow eyes studying my face. As per usual, I was nothing short of awkward about it, and I could feel the heat rising in my face.

“You know, under the right circumstances,” she began, almost coquettishly, as she fixed her gaze back onto me, “I can still have children.”

I smiled. “That’s amazing! Well… Congratulations.”

“Yacob talked to me about it—about his overall plan, how we’re supposed to prosper in this new world,” she continued. “He definitely wants as many people as possible to have children so that we can expand our population. I agree wholeheartedly.”

Stupidly and without knowing what I was agreeing to, I nodded. Her face cracked into the brightest smile I had ever seen.

“Really? You’re okay with that?”

“With you having kids?” I asked, bemused. It was an odd question, and it left me wondering why Jess felt the need to have my approval before having children. “Well, yeah, of course. You seem like you’d be a great mom.”

Before I knew what had happened, she had leaned forward and planted a gentle peck onto my lips. I wasn’t sure what to do during it, so I sat there like the awkward idiot I was with my face burning and my brain running a million kilometers per second.

When she pulled away, she jumped to her feet. “I am so happy, Sam!” she chirped gleefully. “Thank you! I’ll run this by Yacob first, of course, but I’m sure he will be just as thrilled!”

As I watched her run off down the street, I wondered what on earth had just happened.

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