It figures, I always had a feeling I would die before I was forty, but this is ridiculous. He coughed again. This time he coughed up blood.
He struggled, pushing himself against the wall with his feet. Breath came in short gasps. It wouldn’t be long now. His vision began to dim. He could feel it coming.
Death was close.
A tall, dark figure appeared roughly ten feet away.
“Leave me alone,” Mathias groaned. He tried to catch his breath, but he couldn’t. It felt as if some great beast had decided to sit on his chest.
And then, the figure was five feet away. Mathias knew he hadn’t seen the figure move. But it looked closer now. He was too sick to be scared, he was dying anyway. He just hoped it would be over quick. Before he had a chance to blink, the figure was crouched in front of him, eyes glinting in the dark.
He turned his head away; he could feel it. This was death and he didn’t want to look death in the eye. He hoped he was hallucinating.
“It’s all right now, Mathias.” The figure said as it moved its hand in front of Mathias’ eyes, and he felt himself falling away, his vision sinking into a pin hole of light. He saw the figure’s head bent near his body. Before the darkness took him, he felt the sharp sting of teeth at his neck.
* * * * *
Thirteen months ago, he’d lived in West Virginia in a small town called Masontown. His folks had loved him. As an only child, he felt he’d probably been spoiled, but that was light years away now. It was a good life. Sure, they weren’t rich, but his dad had been a coal miner and his mom had been a secretary. There was always a roof over his head and plenty to eat. But his life had changed.
* * * * *
Mathias looked up from the vampire book he was reading. His father was giving him that look. His father always deviled Mathias, but he knew that was his dad’s way of letting him know he loved him. To anyone else, they would have thought his father was being mean. Part of that was the way he looked. He was a tall man, with a large muscular build, kept in shape by the hard work in the mines. His hair was coal black, and he had deep set eyes that could look very mean when he wanted them to, but he rarely was mad or mean to Mathias, and then it was only when he deserved it.
“Mathias Drvar, I don’t even know why I bother. You’ve always got your head buried in these goddamned books. Just like your mother.”
Here we go again. He rolled his eyes and smiled at his father. “Dad,” Mathias threw a bookmark into his book and tossed the book onto the couch. “You know how it is, I just can’t help myself. When I read, it’s like watching a movie.”
His dad laughed. “You and your damned vampires. I swear, if I didn’t know better I’d think you came from somewhere else.” His sapphire blue eyes always sparkled when he laughed. He turned his head. “Linda, are you ready yet?”
“Yes, Butchie, I am,” she said as she walked into the room. When she dressed up, she always looked like she had stepped out of a magazine. Her brown hair was cut short, but it framed her face. Her hazel eyes seemed to dance from her face, usually they were hidden behind her glasses, but tonight, she’d left her glasses off. She was medium in height, not like her husband who was over six feet tall.
When they stood next to each other, sometimes people would comment on how they reminded them of “Mutt and Jeff”. Of course, Mathias had to ask what that meant. He’d read somewhere that they were old serial characters that were featured in movies a long time ago. Apparently, one was very tall and the other was very short. Still, to Mathias, the description didn’t seem to fit his parents very well.
She turned to Mathias. “Keep an eye on the house while we’re gone.”
Their house was a little blue house, and people who didn’t know them always seemed to look down on them for it. But Mathias never felt like there was a house that was more homey. When he visited his friend’s homes, he always had to take his shoes off so he wouldn’t mess up the carpet. His mother always figured that a house was a place to live in, not a show place. That wasn’t to say that their house looked like a pig sty, especially not with his father’s obsession with order, but it was also lived in.
“Sure Mom. No problem.”
She smoothed her dress, reached over, and ruffled her son’s hair. “Be good. It isn’t often that your dad takes me out.”
“Keep it up and I won’t take you out at all.” His dad grumbled, and then winked at his son.
“Come on!” She grabbed his father by the arm and pushed him out the door. As she turned to Mathias, she said, “If you run into any trouble, just call your aunt. But honestly, I think everything will be alright.”
He tried to stop the scowl from reaching his eyes, but it just didn’t work.
“Mathias, I know that your aunt can be difficult, but it’s not like I have much choice. You know she’s all I have left.”
Yeah. Heard that story too many times, Mom. Annette’s the baby, uh huh. She just expresses herself differently. Yeah right. She’s probably bipolar like Grandma was.
His dad poked his head inside the door. “Mathias, don’t forget to lock the doors behind us, alright?”
“Yeah, Dad.” He followed them out the door.
“We’ll be home by eleven,” they called to him from the driveway.
Mathias waved. He watched the car until it pulled away into the night.
After closing and locking the door, he walked over and sat down on the couch. It wasn’t as if he minded being at home by himself. There were plenty of movies to watch, and there was his book to finish. Not often did you find a book about a vampire dog.
He stood, went into the kitchen, made himself a sandwich, and settled down for the evening.
* * * * *
“This handy dandy steamer mop...” the TV blared.
“What the hell?” Mathias blinked his eyes several times and looked at the clock. 3 a.m. It was late. Too late. “Where are they?”
Suddenly, he could feel it. That deep pit of dread that forms in your gut the minute you know something had gone wrong. He ran to the front window and pulled back the curtain. The car wasn’t in the driveway.
“This can’t be happening,” he said.
He didn’t know what to do. He grabbed the phone and dialed his dad’s cell, but it went straight to voicemail.
“What am I going to do now?”
There was a knock at the door. Mathias didn’t want to look. He just knew that something was wrong. He took a deep breath and looked through the peephole. What he saw was the thing he dreaded more than anything else— the men in blue. One was taller than anyone Mathias had ever seen before. The other seemed a bit too much like Barney Fife for Mathias’ comfort.
Before he could open the door, the tall one knocked again.
Mathias could not breathe. His tongue seemed to stick to the back of his throat. Slowly, he unlocked the door and opened it.
One of the men cleared his throat.
A part of Mathias was praying that they had the wrong house. But he knew that they didn’t.
“Is this the Drvar residence, son?” the smaller cop asked.
Mathias nodded slowly. The world began to spin like a great merry-go-round. He felt a hand grab him and steady him.
“Come on, son. Sit down,” the tall cop said. He led Mathias to the couch.
Mathias looked around and realized he’d gotten to the sofa. He sat but didn’t even remember the cop leading him to it.
The next thing he knew a glass of water was in his hand.
“Breathe, just breathe.” The smaller one shook his head at the tall one. “I’m Officer Davis, and this is my partner, Officer Coombs. Is there anyone we can call for you?”
Mathias hated to say it, but he didn’t have a choice. He heard himself mumble through the drumming in his ears, “My Aunt Annette, she lives in Wheeling.”
Somehow, he managed to give the police his Aunt’s phone number from the depths of his memory.
He heard one of them call his aunt, but he d
idn’t pay attention to that. He was numb. And to make everything worse, the one woman in the world he could admit he hated was coming for him. His aunt was nothing like his mother. Her hair, while brown, was mousy and seemed almost burnt by her hairdresser’s attempts to make it blonde. Her eyes were brown and she had these crazy eyebrows. They gave Mathias the creeps, way too bushy for a woman. She was just off somehow.
He’d always dreaded the holidays when he’d been forced to play nice with her. She was one of those false people. In front of his parents, she was kind and sweet. But the minute she was alone with him, it was like the kid gloves would come off.
Over the years, she’d insulted him more times than he could count. There was something psychotic about her, just behind the eyes, but he’d never had enough proof to make her stop verbally abusing him. He didn’t know if it was jealousy, or if it was just that she was a bad person, but it felt like she enjoyed taking out her frustration on him anytime she got the chance. It was a mystery. Mathias had no idea why she hated him. It had just always been so, and it made it so that every holiday, he played the game, praying for the day to pass quickly.
Time passed. Mathias didn’t bother to look at the clock, but finally he watched his aunt come through the door, sobbing. “This is just the worst thing I can think of.” She allowed the cops to steady her as she howled.
“Ma’am, try to calm down,” Officer Davis said. “Let us get your contact information and you can take the boy.”
Mathias stopped paying attention. His head felt like it was filled with jelly. Everything looked like it was moving in slow motion.
Suddenly, a hand with sharp fingernails grabbed him by the shoulder. His aunt sunk the tips of the nails into his shoulder. It felt like a bear trap just starting to close. Not fun at all. But, it did bring him out of his daze.
“Oh, Mathias, are you okay honey?” His aunt asked sweetly.
He jerked his shoulder out of her grip. She smiled knowingly at him and patted his knee.
“These nice men have something important to tell us,” she said.
Officer Coombs cleared his throat. “This evening, at 10:48 p.m. the vehicle driven by Charles Drvar was struck behind by another vehicle. Unfortunately, Mr. Drvar lost control, and the car smashed into a tree. Both Charles and Linda Drvar...” He cleared his throat.
Mathias felt the tears begin to build in his eyes.
“The driver who hit them is currently being held at the county jail. He was drunk...” The cop paused. Mathias could tell that the man always hated this part of his job because of the sad look in his eye.
“What hospital are they at?” Mathias asked. He hoped his feeling was wrong, but he knew it wasn’t.
“Son,” the smaller cop said. “I’m sorry. They didn’t make it.”
Mathias could hold back no more. The tears flowed and his body was wracked with sobs. No more jokes with his father. No more of Mom’s meatloaf. It was gone, all gone. Perhaps the worst thing about finding out that his parents were gone was that his aunt let him sit and cry. She didn’t even bother to give him any semblance of comfort. Not that he would have wanted it, but she could have at least made the effort. Mathias had never felt so unloved in his whole life.
* * * * *
Mathias watched her take the policemen to the other side of the room. He could hear her voice telling them something, but she was whispering and he was too far away to hear. It wasn’t like anything she could say now would make any difference. The life he’d known was over.
Chapter Two
Something was happening to Mathias. The nerves throughout his body began twitching and his body started shaking uncontrollably. His bones lengthened and retracted. Pain. So much pain. His blood burned in his veins like liquid fire, like it was attacking everything. The pain was changing him, making him alive.
* * * * *
Mathias opened his eyes. Very slowly, things came into focus. Light, objects, if he could see those things, he wasn’t dead. It took him a few minutes to blink away the weird film that had developed… While he slept? Passed out? Where the hell was he? The room was white. He remembered hearing stories about people seeing a white light when they die, but he hadn’t seen any weird light. There had only been great pain and a void. Finally, he heard voices coming from outside the room. He turned his head. No one there yet. The room smelled. It had some sort of antiseptic scent, but it looked like a dormitory room he’d seen on TV. He waited, and tried to strain his ears so he could hear everything the voices were saying.
“What about room six, Doctor Evans?”a voice asked.
Mathias immediately thought “hospital”, but as he looked at the room he noticed it was more like a hotel room than a something you’d find in a hospital.
He sat up in bed. There was no pain. He peeked underneath the hospital gown, and found nothing. There was no evidence that he’d even been shot. His arm was sore, so he looked down. There was an IV sticking out of it. What looked like blood was slowly seeping into his body. He wanted none of it. With a jerk, he pulled the tubing from his arm. The IV machine began beeping annoyingly as soon as Mathias detached the tubing. He ignored it. Just as he got out of the bed, a group of white coated men and women rushed into the room.
“Come on now. It’s all right. Let’s get you back to bed,” the closest one said to him.
Mathias looked around like a caged animal. What the hell do they want to do with me? The closer any of them stepped, the further Mathias retreated to the wall.
“Who are you? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Mathias snarled, trying to scare them away.
A female stepped forward. “We don’t want anything from you. We’re trying to help you.”
Mathias looked at them wildly. Everything that had been bottled up inside from the beginning let loose at once. He grabbed the bed, simply meaning to push it toward them, but managed to throw it across the room instead. The shock of throwing the bed dissipated his rage. “Did I just...”
One of the men in white stepped forward. He was huge with great big muscular arms that strained the sleeves of his white scrubs. He calmly moved the bed out of the way of the door. It was like nothing. He didn’t even strain. “Now, son. I suggest you calm down and begin acting a bit more civilized. We do things a bit differently here. You don’t want me to have to bring Master Tepes in here.”
“What the fuck do I care? You can’t tell me what to do! I don’t give a shit about any goddamn Master Tepes! Get the fuck out of here!” Mathias leaned forward, getting ready to fight if he had to.
In an instant, the light in the room dimmed slightly and Mathias felt a pair of cold hands rest on his shoulders. “Enough is enough, little one. It’s time to calm down.”
Mathias jumped and turned to the figure behind him. He recognized the tall dark figure with the glinting eyes from the alley. He watched the figure raise his hand, and in the next moment, everything went black.
* * * * *
Master Tepes sighed, and then motioned for several men; together they got the poor child back into his bed.
“You must remember, Alexander. This one has been through quite a lot. He doesn’t even know who he is. When next he wakes, offer food. Then, contact me at once,” Master Tepes nodded at Alexander, the large orderly, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
* * * * *
The next time Mathias woke, he found himself tied to the bed. “Goddamn it.” His eyes darted around the room, almost expecting to be attacked or something, but no one was there. The door to the room was closed. He could almost bet it was locked. There was no way out of it. He was a prisoner.
“Help!” Mathias yelled. He jerked against the straps holding him down, but they were too strong; they wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t long before he heard footsteps thumping down the hall headed for his room. The door opened and before he could do much else, a woman, whom Mathias guessed to be a nurse, was holding out a glass of red liquid. She crept over to him like he was going to hurt her. I
’m the one that’s tied down and she’s afraid of me?
“What is that?” he asked.
The nurse smiled, timidly. “You could call it—let’s see— What are they calling them these days? Oh yes, an energy drink.”
“What’s in it?” Mathias asked.
“Vitamins, things your body needs to get well,” the nurse replied.
He paused. “What’s going on here?”
The nurse grinned weakly at him and set the glass on the bedside table. It was almost like she was trying to keep him calm. Mathias watched as she untied him. He kept very still and almost jumped when she started rubbing his wrists where the straps had held him to the bed.
Guess I’m not so scary after all.
“Honey, Master Tepes will explain everything. I know you’ve been through one heck of a fright, but I need you to stay calm for me,” she patted his arm and helped him sit up. She then picked up the “energy drink” from the nightstand and handed it to him.
“You really expect me to drink this?” Mathias curled his lip and moved away from the glass. Who knew what was in it? It wasn’t like these people had made themselves trustworthy, they’d knocked him out and tied him to a bed.
The nurse sighed. “Look, I’ll take a sip. I promise; there is nothing in this drink that will harm you.”
Mathias watched her put the glass to her lips and took a drink. He still wasn’t convinced.
“Open your mouth!” He knew that his mother would be ashamed at the way he was acting, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been through too much to trust anyone.
The nurse complied, and when Mathias saw the red stain on her tongue, he took the glass from her outstretched hand.
She watched him, eyes steady. Mathias slowly brought the glass up to his nose and sniffed. It didn’t smell like much of anything. He shrugged and took a sip and smacked his lips a few times.
“This stuff isn’t too bad. Kind of coppery, but all right I guess.”
The nurse smiled. “I’ll go let the Master know that you are ready to see him,” she patted him on the foot, “Enjoy your drink.”