THE FINAL
Immediately after their friend went down, the three other vampires slowed, turning to look to the west. Another gunshot rang out, immediately followed by another, and in the time it took me to blink, three vampires were sprawled on the grass in the clearing. The only one remaining began charging west. Not a moment later, another gunshot sounded, and the fourth vampire immediately went down.
Then, stunning, baffling, and disorienting me, I heard Jen’s voice coming from somewhere not too far away.
“Hey, Syd! It was me doing that! It was me shooting the gun! Can you believe it?”
I wasn’t quite sure exactly what I believed anymore. Knowing that Jen had fired a gun was making me experience a more profound sense of distorted reality than even seeing the Warren vampires had.
Just to my right, behind the boulder, Chrissy suddenly stopped crying and began babbling softly. “Ah-Zhen. Ah-Zhen.”
Looking from her back to the clearing, I saw Jen emerge from the trees to the west, with a gun in her hands, pointed at the ground. The sight made me feel extremely relieved yet utterly terrified at the same time.
Seeming to be humming a little tune to herself, Jen began walking over to me, surveying the four unconscious vampires in the clearing as she did so. “Yup. Got ‘em. Got ‘em all.”
Like Bucky had told her, her aim was deadly accurate. Each of her shots had hit the vampires right between the eyes. Her shots weren’t truly deadly, though. The vampires she’d shot would be back up in just a minute or two, with the holes in their heads already healing. She’d bought us time, though. However, we needed to move quickly to get back to the house.
After snatching up Chrissy, I looked at Jen again, intending to tell her to hurry up and follow me. However, I saw that she’d come to a stop and was looking at something to the east.
She suddenly narrowed her eyes. “Oh, God. It’s Mel.”
I followed her line of vision and saw a pale-faced vampire dressed all in black tearing into the clearing, closely followed by Mel, who was just a few paces back and to his side.
Jen raised her gun. “Just stay put for a sec, Syd, and don’t be afraid. I’ve passed an advanced-level firearms safety and training class, and I know exactly how to use this weapon.”
Lining up her aim while the Warren vampire and Mel got a little closer, Jen paused for a moment or two, then fired. I blinked, opening my eyes hoping to see the pale-faced vampire hitting the grass.
However, on this last vampire, Jen’s aim had been way off, and she’d ended up getting Mel right between the eyes. Mel was now on the ground, motionless, with a dark hole in her forehead. Momentarily forgetting that she was a vampire, I screamed, hands flying to my face.
“Mel!”
Just as I mercifully remembered that Mel would be just fine, Jen fired again, this time taking out the Warren vampire, who dropped like a fly not ten feet away from Jen, and maybe fifteen from me and Chrissy.
Just a second later, several Watcher vampires, all women, began streaming into the clearing.
Jen cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at them. “Drag Mel somewhere safe! And kill all the Warren vampires before they wake up from being shot!”
Jen then came jogging over to me with her gun pointed at the ground, asking if Chrissy and I were okay. When I said that we were, Jen said good, and then began hustling me back down the trail with her free hand on my back, and her other hand still pointing her gun at the ground.
Glancing down at it, Jen told me to look how safe she was being. “See, rule number one of firearm safety is that you never point your weapon at anything you don’t intend to destroy…ever. Doesn’t matter if you’re out of bullets, like I am, doesn’t matter if you don’t think you loaded it in the first place…Bucky says you just don’t ever do it, so I never do.”
More rattled than I’d probably ever been in my life, I could only speak two words in a shaky voice. “That’s good.”
Glancing back at the clearing, Jen suggested we start jogging back up to the house. “Who knows how many more of those Warren freaks are out here, and with us out of bullets…well, we should probably just be as fast as we can. I mean, to be honest, I’ve kind of always wanted to pistol-whip someone…just to see what it’d feel like. But I should probably try it first on a human criminal, not a vampire.”
Jogging along the trail as fast as I could, holding Chrissy, I said that was probably a good idea. Jen agreed, saying that it sure was, and then fell silent, jogging alongside me with her gun still pointed at the ground.
Neither of us spoke for a minute until we turned a slight corner and emerged from the forest trail with the house coming into view in the distance. The house wasn’t all we saw, though. Coming in from the west, moving silently and slowly, several dozen Warren vampires dressed all in black were creeping around the side of the house.
Immediately, Jen grabbed the back of my shirt and silently began pulling me back to the trail. Only once we were on it again, hidden by trees, did she speak in a whisper so quiet it could barely be heard. “So…I think this is the ‘full-scale attack’ everyone’s been talking about for so long. And I am definitely, for sure out of bullets.”
Petrified, I glanced down at Chrissy, who’d somehow managed to fall asleep in my arms during our jog up the trail. Then, just as quietly as Jen had, I whispered back to her. “Well, what should we do?”
At exactly the same time, as if we’d both been hit by the same bolt of lightning to the brain, Jen and I both answered my question in a whisper. “Call Hayden.”
Having tucked her gun in the waistband of her jean shorts, Jen was already pulling out her phone before we’d even said the second syllable of Hayden’s name.
Trying to force my panic-stricken brain to work, I told Jen to first shut off the volume on her phone so that if we didn’t reach Hayden and he tried to call us back, the ringing wouldn’t be heard by the nearby Warrens. “See if you can do the same to my phone, too, just in case. Just grab it from my pocket.”
After shutting off her own phone’s volume, Jen fished around in both my pants pockets but came up empty. “I don’t even think you have your phone on you, Syd.”
It was only then that I realized that I’d left it on the island at home.
“Okay, no big deal. Just go call Hayden on your own phone now, then.”
Jen did, eyes widening just a moment later when he apparently picked up. Just a split-second later, she began whispering. “It’s me and Sydney. Chrissy, too. We’re at the front part of that one trail that leads to that meadow that always has a ton of butterflies in it. It’s that one part of the trail that where if you go forward when you’re facing straight, you’ll be walking toward the house. Feel me, bro?” She paused for just a moment or two, then continued whispering. “Yeah. They’re swarming all over around the house. Please haul ass as fast as you can, because I have a gun, but I’m all out of bullets, and the only possible defense I have left is pistol-whipping, which I feel like I should probably try first on a human criminal, not a vampire.” Jen paused again for another moment or two, and then said okay. “See you soon.”
She ended the call and pocketed her phone, silently giggling, before whispering again. “Hayden had no idea that I have a gun. He is gonna be so mad!” She paused again for another brief, silent giggle before continuing. “The only person who knew was Trevor, because he surveilled me going to the gun range every day; but he couldn’t tell, because he swore his own self to secrecy that one day when he pinkie promised me that he wouldn’t tell where I went in Sweetwater unless it was someplace illegal.
He did make me promise to all these different little safety regulations and things, though, like keeping my gun locked up in the barn instead of the house, but…well, Bucky made me promise all that stuff, too. Anyway, I wonder where Trevor even is? When I left Sweetwater to come back home, he was right behind me, but I almost think I lost him when we hit all these different little roadblocks for construction. I just went right around the last roadblock, because a construction man held up a sign to me that said GO; but then when I glanced back, I saw that he’d flipped it around to where it still said GO to me, meaning that it probably said STOP to Trevor. So, maybe he just got stopped for a really long time or something.”
Straining my ears, I suddenly shushed Jen. “You hear that?”
She silently listened for a few moments, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s a woodpecker, I think.”
Unsure of whether to laugh or cry, I did neither, shaking my head instead. “No. Not the woodpecker. Down the trail…a very soft, rhythmic, faintly rustling sort of noise…like footsteps of people who are trying to stay silent.”
Jen listened again, then whispered back to me. “Okay…now I hear it. What if it’s our people, though? Maybe those girls who I told to kill the Warrens in the butterfly meadow. Maybe they’re coming up the trail now, dragging Mel.”
Looking down the trail, I suddenly bit back a gasp, grabbing Jen’s arm. “Look.”
A group of Warrens, all in black, had come into view after rounding a slight curve in the trail. They were maybe only forty feet away, maybe even less. Immediately, they spotted Jen, Chrissy, and me, and after quickly all exchanging glances, they took off at a sprint as a group.
*
With a hand on my back, Jen began pushing me toward the trailhead, not even bothering to whisper anymore. “Try to make a break for the house with Chrissy. I’ll try to pistol-whip a path for you guys.”
Already breaking into a run with a still-sleeping Chrissy pressed to my chest, I said okay, and within a few paces, I saw the house. With the light amber color of the lower level almost completely obscured by black-clad vampires swarming around the house, I didn’t see that there was any possible way I could get in, not to mention that I had no intention of leaving Jen behind. We’d just have to run somewhere else, just praying that we’d get help in the form of Watcher vampires along the way.
The moment I began telling Jen to hang a right with me, toward the forestland, my prayer was answered. I froze, making Jen slam on her brakes, too, jostling into me.
“Jen, look at the house.”
Watcher vampires, led by Hayden, were now charging in from the west, fangs bared. And within a second or two, everything was chaos. Watchers knocked Warrens to the ground, and Warrens tackled Watchers from behind. Watchers pulled knives and began stabbing Warrens in the chest, and Warrens did the same. Very quickly, the vast backyard became a blur of mayhem, with all vampires moving with such speed that it was often difficult to tell who was who.
The Warrens that had been on the trail charged out at this point, although they didn’t charge at me and Jen. A group of female Watcher vampires behind them made sure of that, almost steering them away to the other side of the yard.
Knowing that we were still in great danger even though the Warrens were all presently occupied, I told Jen we should still seek shelter somewhere. “Like, maybe in the shed.”
The shed, where a few lawn mowers were kept, was just a short distance from the back patio, and I was pretty sure we could reach it while still avoiding the fighting. However, not a moment after I’d suggested it, it was flattened by a Watcher leaping through the air with a Warren, body-slamming him on the shed. The tremendous boom of the impact somehow didn’t even make Chrissy startle.
Jen asked me where else we should try to take cover, but I realized right then that cover was kind of being taken around us. Jen asked what I meant, and I told her to look all around us.
“See how our fighters are sort of starting to form a loose ring around us with their backs turned toward us? I might be wrong, but it seems like they’re trying to form a ‘ring of protection’ around us or something.”
Jen began looking all around, doing a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle, although she stopped just short of it, narrowing her eyes. “Oh, God. It’s Mel.”
I followed her line of vision and saw Mel charging out from the trailhead, looking as if she hadn’t taken a bullet to the brain mere minutes earlier, and had instead downed an energizing shot of espresso. Flanking her were two other Watcher women, both looking just as ready for battle as she appeared to be.
Within seconds, it became clear that my theory about what the Watchers in the backyard were doing was correct. They’d now formed a fairly cohesive loose circle around me, Jen, and Chrissy, and they tightened the circle whenever it seemed that a Warren vampire was trying to get in.
After watching the action for a little bit, Jen turned her gaze back to me. “You think we should try to get to the house by crawling between their legs or something?”
I said that I didn’t think that would be necessary. “I think we’re pretty safe here, so we should probably just stay put.”
It turned out that we were more than safe where we were. Within a few minutes, so many Warrens had been killed that Hayden ordered his fighters to start throwing headless corpses in a pile so that everyone still fighting didn’t trip over them.
Sickened by the gore, I’d long since closed my eyes, but I now dared to peep them open and have a quick look around, stunned although not really, to see Jen watching all the action while holding a little bag of peanuts, popping a few into her mouth.
Seeing that my eyes were now open, she held out the bag to me. “Do you like honey roasted?”
My mind was so jumbled by the absolute panic and terror I’d felt earlier that I couldn’t even think of what I liked or didn’t anymore, and I was unable to issue a response.
Undaunted, Jen reached into her back pocket with her free hand, produced another little package of peanuts, and held it out to me. “I have regular salted, too, if you like those better.”
Not fifteen feet away from us, someone issued a yell of clear pain, and I looked just in time to see Hayden finish driving a knife deep into a Warren vampire’s chest. He then immediately withdrew the knife and held it aloft for just a split-second before sweeping it in a downward arc across the enemy vampire’s throat. Writhing on his back, the vampire made a strangled gurgling noise while a jet of blood shot feet above his throat, spraying Hayden a bit.
Nausea rolled over me in a powerful wave, and I suddenly noticed that it was as if a hazy gray curtain were being slowly pulled across my eyes from each side. As far as my body, my legs had seemed to turn to rubber.
Having passed out before, I knew the signs and quickly spoke to Jen. “I’m blacking out. Grab Chrissy.”
The last thing I was aware of was Jen tossing peanuts in the air, crying out for someone to help, and then I felt her arms around me. They seemed to be holding me and Chrissy up, or at least greatly slowing our fall. Then, everything went black.
When I came to, I was in Hayden’s and my bed. And, stunning me, Hayden was in bed with me, too, facing me on his side. Looking at him in the pale light from a bit of sun peeking in through the curtained windows, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been in our bed together.
Seeing my eyes open, Hayden immediately asked me how I was feeling, with his expression a mask of concern.
Thinking about the question, I pulled myself up a little higher on the stack of pillows that was behind my head and upper back. “I…I think I feel fine, I guess. How long was I out for? Oh, and how’s Chrissy? And how’s everyone else?”
Hayden heaved a sigh of seeming relief, with his expression becoming one much less tense. “You were out for about two hours; Chrissy is just fine and is playing in her nursery with Jen, who returned her firearm to her lockbox in the barn beforehand, where it’s going to stay as long as Chrissy lives in this house; and as far as how everyone else is doing, everyone is mostly fine.
A few of my fighters had pretty severe injuries, but fortunately, they’re healing rapidly as we speak, and also fortunately, no one was killed. Mel is resting in her room right now with a terrible headache, but she’s otherwise just fine.”
Now it was my turn to heave a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s all so good to hear. And what about the Warrens? And Carla. Was she even part of the attack today?”
Caressing the side of my face, Hayden said that she’d arrived late. “Probably expecting to find all my fighters decimated, and me vulnerable to an assault by some of the fighters she brought with her like a personal entourage; but what she found was an entirely different scene.”
“And what happened?”
“Well, the brief recap is Jen screaming ‘She’s mine’ and charging Carla; Mel trying to stop her but not fast enough; Jen pistol-whipping Carla, pretty successfully, too; but then Carla got the upper hand and tried to sink her fangs into Jen’s throat. Mel had reached them by that point and soon pulled Carla off before she could drink from Jen.
After that…well, I’ll just point out that Carla has always been an exceptionally weak vampire, and Mel is proving to be quite a strong one. Needless to say, Carla is not a citizen of this world anymore. Axel Warren has also left us, along with a hundred-fifty-something of his fighters. Some were able to flee…a few dozen, maybe…but I don’t think they’ll trouble us very much. At least not on the level that the Warrens have been.”
For the second time, I heaved a sigh of relief, closing my eyes. When I opened them, I felt the prickling of unshed tears, and I told Hayden that I wanted to tell him something. He asked me what it was, and I started out by simply saying that I was sorry.
“And I mean…I’m sorry for everything. For not putting myself in your shoes enough these past few months, for constantly fighting with you, and most of all, for saying what I said to you this morning. I don’t want a divorce, Hayden. I want to be your wife forever. I only said that because I was so frustrated with everything. It was a terrible, stupid, horribly immature thing for me to say.”
Hayden didn’t deny it, but also added that I was only nineteen. “And nobody can expect a nineteen-year-old new bride to be perfectly mature all the time, especially when under a lot of stress. Not to mention that I also said a few terrible, stupid, horribly immature things myself today, and I’m several years older than you are.”
“Well, maybe, although after I said I wanted a divorce. None of this even matters anymore, though. All that does matter is that I’m so sorry for what I said, and I just want to know if you can forgive me, so we can move on as husband and wife…forever.”
After pressing a tender kiss against my lips, Hayden said there was nothing to forgive.
Thanking him, I closed my eyes briefly, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I want you to know that I’m not just saying all this because everything is resolved now. I actually realized what a huge mistake I’d made not long after you left the house. When you didn’t answer my call, I took Chrissy and I went out to chase after you, but then I soon came across a group of Warrens.”
Hayden said he’d immediately regretted our fight, too, and he’d started heading back to the house probably not long before I’d left. “That was why I wasn’t where you probably thought I’d be when you went out looking for me.”
“Well, it’s a good thing Jen came out of nowhere. I’d probably be dead without her, Chrissy, too.”
Saying he hated to even think about it, Hayden agreed. “Jen actually thought I’d be mad at her about her gun, but when I heard the whole story of what happened, and how she defended you and Chrissy with it, I picked her up and gave her the biggest hug I’ve probably ever given her in her life.”
I smiled. “How did she even get the gun anyway? And why did she even come back to the house after going to Sweetwater? Do you know?”
“Well, as you’ve probably been able to guess by now, Jen actually hasn’t been playing paintball with her new grandparents every day. They’ve actually been going to a shooting range. Apparently, the very first day he met Jen, Bucky got the idea that our community was warring with another ‘Mennonite’ group, and he became so concerned for Jen’s safety that he asked her if she’d like to learn to fire a gun for self-defense.
A month or so later, Jen had become so adept at shooting that Bucky bought her a gun for her own, making her promise that if she didn’t get permission from me to keep it locked up in the house, she’d keep it locked up in the barn, which she did. I guess she didn’t want to tell anyone about her new gun or her experiences at the range because she thought we’d all be mad and try to stop her, which…yeah, we definitely would have.”
“Best friend or not, I probably would have tried to stop her from ever going into Sweetwater again. The thought of Jen handling a gun would have just absolutely terrified me.”
“Me, too. I’ve told her she can keep it, though, locked up in the barn, far away from Chrissy, like I said, provided she follows a few specific ground rules. But, now, back to your other question, as to why she came home from Sweetwater so early…apparently, she told Phyllis and Bucky the story about your aunt, suddenly realizing that I probably wouldn’t let you go to Moxon to see her.
So, she decided to go herself, first stopping home to grab her lemon bars; but you didn’t answer her calls to tell you this, and when she got home, she found you and Chrissy gone. Wondering where you went, and worried that the Warrens might have had something to do with your disappearance, she got her gun from the barn and started searching the property. She hadn’t gotten too far when she heard you scream, and she dashed through the woodland by the clearing.”
Thinking of everything that had happened after that, and everything that might have happened had Jen not been there, I shuddered slightly, tears again rolling down my cheeks. “Bless Jen and her big, caring heart. If she hadn’t decided to go visit Pam, bringing her lemon bars and all, Chrissy and I would probably be dead by now.”
“I agree…bless Jen. But no more crying now. You and Chrissy are safe; our family is together again; we’re starting a new chapter; and life is good.”
Smiling through a fresh wave of tears, I agreed.
That evening, after Hayden and I fed Chrissy her dinner and then put her to bed together, even taking time to read her several stories, Hayden left to go see how the burning of all the Warren corpses was going. It was a grim task that had to be completed fairly quickly, so that authorities didn’t stumble onto the farm and find headless torsos, heads, and various body parts everywhere. That would require some intensive mind-clearing that Hayden said he’d really rather not do.
Understanding completely, I went downstairs to the kitchen and found Jen up to the island, digging into a massive bowl of green salad. The bowl was actually a mixing bowl.
Having a seat across from her, I smiled. “Too tired to make a pancake tower with frosting?”
She chuckled. “Yeah…and we’re out of frosting, too. Besides, I’m feeling so mature with my gun and all, that I was thinking I should probably start eating more mature, too. A big salad is a pretty mature, adult-like food thing, isn’t it?”
Smiling, I said that it was.
While Jen began crunching on a slice of cucumber, I told her how grateful I was for everything she’d done that day. “You saved Chrissy’s life, and mine, Jen, and I’ll never forget it. Thank you.”
Swallowing her bite of cucumber with a bashful little sort of smile, she shrugged. “I guess I figured it was the very least I could do after lying to you about going to the shooting range. See, I didn’t want to lie to you, but I just thought that everyone in this house would completely freak out on me if they knew the truth. Hayden even pretty much said to me that you all would have. So, that’s why I did what I did. I just hope you can forgive me for it.”
“Of course, I do.”
We both fell silent briefly again, and then I remembered to thank her for having the thought to go visit Pam in my place.
Jen said it was no big deal. “See, I had the idea to go visit her in your place, but Phyllis thought that maybe the hospital would only accept family visitors only. But since you and me are cousins, or aunts to each other, or whatever family thing we are to each other, I just figured that that makes me a family member to your aunt, too; so, I was going to go to that hospital place and just tell them that I’m a family member there to see your aunt.”
I told Jen that maybe we could both go the following day, and she said that sounded great. “I’ll make a fresh batch of lemon bars tomorrow morning, and even a batch of lemon poppy seed muffins, too. See, scientists have proven that eating anything lemon-tasting reduces sad feelings by up to a hundred and forty-three percent.”
Fighting a smile, I remarked that the “scientists” sure changed their statistics a lot.
Jen said that was common knowledge. “They do it just to keep on making science interesting for everyone.”
Once Jen had finished her salad, having to drench it in ranch dressing and bacon bits to do so, she stretched, sighing, with her arms above her head. “What a day. Lots of adventure, lots of action, and now the whole thing of the fight with the Warrens is fully behind us.”
“Well…before the fight is fully behind us, don’t you think you have one more thing to do first?”
Dropping her arms, Jen frowned. “What thing?”
“Well, don’t you think you should go upstairs and tell Mel that you’re sorry for accidentally shooting her?”
“Oh, that wasn’t an accident, and I’m not sorry.”
I couldn’t help but gasp. “Jen! You seriously shot Mel on purpose?”
Jen nodded. “Yup. And I’m not sorry.”
“How….” Uncomprehending, I gave my head a little shake. “How could you do that?”
“Well, easy. I could do what I did because I knew she’s a vampire, and I knew she wouldn’t die or have any kind of a permanent injury, or even a scar. I just wanted to zing her a bit, which I successfully did. I zinged her real good, just to get her back for everything she’s ever said and done to me, including the time when we went to elementary school together, and she told our classmates that I was just a ‘mentally disturbed cousin’ of hers so that she wouldn’t have to admit to being my twin.”
Wanted had been sleeping near Jen’s barstool, but he suddenly woke up, gazing toward the hallway, and did a low sort of woof that he only did when someone was approaching. A few seconds later, Mel came into the kitchen, holding an ice bag to her head.
Wondering how much she’d heard, if anything, of what Jen had just said, I asked her how she was feeling.
With a sigh, she hopped up on a barstool, setting her ice bag on the island. “Oh, fine. My headache is getting better and better by the hour. I think I’ll live.”
Jen snorted. “Live to harass and annoy me one more day, huh?”
And here we go, I thought, anticipating some kind of knock-down drag-out verbal fight.
However, much to my surprise, Mel simply looked at Jen for a long moment before speaking, wearing an expression that I couldn’t quite read. It was something like compassion. Or maybe even tenderness.
“No…I’m not going to harass and annoy you, Jen. Or, at least, I’m really going to try to be better about it. I do do it intentionally sometimes, and I suppose I can try to stop.”
Eyes widening, Jen just stared at Mel for a long moment. “What’s…what’s wrong with you?”
Mel snorted, although smiling. “Nothing.”
“Well, then why—”
“Because when you shot me today, for just a split-second, I forgot that I’m a vampire, and I thought I was going to die. And somehow, in that split-second, I had what felt like a million different thoughts, and one of them was, maybe surprisingly, how sad I was that I was never going to see you again. ‘I’ll be damned,’ I thought. ‘I’m actually going to miss her.’ Then, when I woke up and realized that I was not dead, because vampire, I thought, ‘I’m going to try to change. I’m simply going to tell Jen that I love her and that I want to try to be a better sister.”
Although she’d spoken in a voice that was strong and sure, Mel’s eyes had filled with tears, and she now hastily wiped them away, smiling.
“That’s all that’s ‘wrong’ with me.”
With her own eyes filled with tears, Jen suddenly winced, sending tears running down both cheeks. “I shot you on purpose, Mel.”
With her smile not entirely gone from her lips, Mel just nodded. “I know. I could see it in your eyes before you fired. You were clearly aiming for me.”
“And you’re not mad at me or anything?”
Mel said no. “You’ve done worse to me. Even just this past month, probably, if I were to really stop and think about it. That was you who ran in my bathroom and threw a hair dryer in the tub while I was taking a bath by candlelight the other day, wasn’t it?”
Jen nodded, sniffling. “Yeah. I was really disappointed when you didn’t get a shock.”
Mel grabbed a tissue from a box on the island and handed it to her. “I figured…but a hair dryer has to be plugged in to give someone a shock…and really, hair dryers don’t even do that anymore. They started putting special circuit breaker things in them in the seventies, so that people wouldn’t electrocute themselves.”
Giving me a little shock, Mel and Jen were soon embracing, and Jen was saying that she just wanted a “whole new fresh start” with Mel.
Misty-eyed, Mel patted her back. “I’d like that.”
The following day, with Jen, I went to visit Pam in the hospital, hoping for my own “whole new fresh start.”
Pam, however, didn’t look too thrilled to see me when I slowly entered her private room after leaving Jen in a waiting room down the hallway. In fact, Pam looked almost scared.
Wearing a plain pale blue bathrobe, she sat in a chair turned away from a small writing desk, and she asked what I was doing there. Then, before I could even answer, she spoke again. “If you’re here to yell at me about our phone conversation, now is not the time, Sydney. I’m not…I’m not doing very well right now. I asked you to leave me alone when we last spoke, and I meant it.”
Silently praying that I was doing the right thing, I continued slowly approaching her, and then grabbed a metal folding chair from against the wall, opened it, and had a seat before taking a deep breath. “I want you to stay, Pam.”
Still looking slightly scared, or maybe just confused, she asked me what I meant. “’Stay’ where?”
I took another deep breath. “Just, here. On this earth. I care about you, and I don’t want you to kill yourself. I want you to make a fresh start in life, and I want you to be able to find some happiness.”
With her eyes wide as saucers, she just looked at me for a long moment or two, swallowing, before abruptly shifting her gaze to the side, toward a window. “I think I’m going to stay here for a while. I’ve still got John’s insurance. He left me, you know, but our divorce won’t be final for a few more months. The hospital billing people tell me his insurance will be good for a sixty-day stay. The doctors say that’ll be long enough to start me on some medication and see if it works.”
“That’s good.”
“Yes. My nerves have just been bothering me lately, and they say they have new medications nowadays to treat things like that. So, I guess I’ll try one. Just long enough to see if it works, anyway. Maybe just a couple of weeks.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
We both fell silent, and Pam continued staring out the window.
After a minute or two of just kind of awkwardly examining my cuticles, I told Pam that I’d brought my best friend and cousin-in-law Jen with me. “Do you mind if she pops in just to say hello really quick? She brought you some treats that she made, and a lady at the nurses’ station said it’s fine for you to keep them in your room.”
With her eyes wide and her expression one of confusion or vague fear again, Pam just moved her head in a slow nod, and I quickly texted Jen to come on down.
Not nearly as awkwardly as I’d done, Jen soon came striding on in the room, introduced herself to Pam, and then presented her with a wrapped plate of lemon bars, and another wrapped plate of lemon poppy seed muffins, telling her what they were.
Surprising me, Pam looked up at Jen wearing what I thought was maybe the faintest hint of a smile. “Thank you. I like lemon things. I think I read somewhere that the taste of lemon is said to drive away feelings of sadness.”
With her eyes wide and her jaw dropping, Jen suddenly pointed at Pam. “I like you. I really, really like you. You’re smart. See, I once heard somewhere that scientists actually did a study that proved that lemon-tasting things reduce feelings of sadness by a hundred and eighty-seven percent, but no one ever believes me about this…and sometimes, I think I just dreamed about the study. But you’ve heard of it. You know.”
Pam looked up at Jen with her hint of a smile getting a bit more pronounced. “Maybe I just dreamed about it, too, because I couldn’t tell you where I heard about the study.”
Jen shrugged. “Maybe it actually never even existed, and instead, is just some kind of deep family knowledge that we both share in our brains. See, Sydney and I are step-cousins, so that means that you and I are related, too; so, it should come as no surprise that she share the same brain wiring or something. And a real scientist could probably explain this better than I am, but you get what I mean, right?”
Smiling just a little again, Pam said she was pretty sure that she did.
Jen and I soon left when a nurse poked her head in, reminding Pam that she had some sort of an appointment soon. However, before we left the room, I asked Pam if she’d mind if Jen and I came to see her again the following week.
Jen looked at her expectantly, hands clasped. “Say yes and I’ll bring you some lemon pound cake that’ll knock your socks off.”
Cracking the biggest smile she had during the entire visit, Pam said she’d like that. Beaming, Jen gave her a hug, and I followed suit, thinking that this was probably only the second or third time that we’d hugged in a decade.
Before I pulled away, Pam spoke in a low voice near my ear. “I’d like to see some pictures of Chrissy next time if you have any to share.”
I said I definitely did.
That evening, with Mel, Jen, and Wanted eating dinner at the campground with Phyllis and Bucky, and with Trevor and Sam visiting their girlfriends, and with Mark and Carol still not back from Boston yet, Hayden, Chrissy, and I had the whole house to ourselves. We took full advantage by first having a long play session in the living room with Chrissy with all her toys on the floor.
Next, we fed her dinner, not having to rush at all. Then, it was story time and bath time. Probably not used to so much parental attention and affection, Chrissy fell asleep in her little plastic baby tub while Hayden shampooed her hair.
Once we’d dressed her and put her in her crib, we went back down to the kitchen, where Hayden cooked me dinner. When it was done, he insisted that we take it out to the formal dining room, where I soon saw that he’d lit candles.
After the meal, which was delicious, I had an idea and suddenly told him I wanted to dance.
With his eyes twinkling with amusement, Hayden asked how we could dance with no music. “Do you want me to put some on?”
I shook my head. “No. Just you, me, and the sound of a quiet, happy house. That’s all I need.”
Grinning, Hayden rose from his seat and took my hand, and soon we were swaying beside the table, locked in embrace.
Wanting the moment to last forever, yet freeze it in my mind at the same time, I breathed in deeply, inhaling Hayden’s woodsy scent that I was so crazy about. “I just love this.”
Hayden asked me what in particular, and I lifted my face from his chest, smiling. “Just everything. Just us.”
Smiling in return, he bent his head and kissed me, making my heart feel as if it might soar right out of my chest.
To Be Concluded....
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Ready for the next part of the story?
Dear Reader,
I want to personally thank you for taking your time to read “The Vampire's Special Baby” I really hope you enjoyed it and you are hungry for the next part in the story.
This is the second book of a TRILOGY and you can get the next book at the link below. See what happens next!!
See you in the final book :)
Amira x x
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