The Guest & the Change (3 page)

Jo just nodded.
 
He didn’t even flinch as the vampire leant across and, with one fast movement, snapped Jo’s neck.

***

The vampire wasn’t yet sure what he planned to do with Jo, yet he had decided Jo would be useful to him.
 
It hadn’t been a hard decision turning him into a vampire.
 
He had done it quite a few times over the centuries and
realized
how useful it could be to have an ally in a new town.
 
- Especially with Daniel being
around.
 
He could never tell what Daniel might be planning, so it would be good to have extra muscle around, just in case.
 

He hadn’t yet decided whether he would let Jo go back to his old life and live with his wife and children.
 
It would be a risk, he may become exposed. He probably wouldn’t be able to control himself.
 
 
And he wouldn’t always be there to help him.
 

Maybe he would just keep Jo hidden, teach him to hunt at night.
 
There were plenty of bars in town, dark and dingy, where they’d hardly be noticed leaving with different people each night.
 
Jo would have a ferocious appetite as a newly turned vampire.
 

In fact the vampire, Sebastian, couldn’t wait to find out what Jo would be like.
 
The transition into a vampire was a funny thing.
 
Sometimes people kept their human personalities and resisted the change in lifestyle.
 
Other times they embraced it, hunted wildly and forgot their human connections.
 
Sometimes they tormented the connections they still remembered from their humanity, they haunted them or killed them.
 

He wondered how Jo’s family would fair.
 
Hmm, if Jo killed his family it probably would get noticed.
 
Sebastian decided he would keep Jo to himself for
now,
he would train him and turn him into the sort of vampire he wanted, away from outside influences.
 
Sort of like a pet project.
 
It could be fun to see him struggle and possibly go a little crazy.

Sebastian lifted the now dead Jo off the floor and opened the trunk.
 
He pushed him into the back, where nobody would notice, and slid into the front seat himself.
 
He reversed out of the quarry parking lot and headed further into the woods.

CHAPTER 2

Sarah thought back to two years previously, not long after she’d had Bea.
 
She had felt awful, and not at her most attractive.
 
Looking after Megan and Bea together was hard work and she still hadn’t fully recovered from the birth.
 
She was sore and had a post baby flabby tummy.
 
Her breasts were large and uncomfortable. She had often pulled away from Jo’s touch as she was seldom in the mood.
 

All her attention had been on her kids, she was surrounded by love and need and physical affection from her children.
 
She needed space.
 
But it was an awful time for Jo to do what he did.
 
He should have waited for her to recover.
 
All men must get frustrated with their wives after having children, when their children are very young and
monopolize
their mother’s attention.
 
And
labor
is hard.
 
God, the hardest thing
she’s ever had to endure.
 
It takes time to recover.
 
And instead of looking after her, instead of staying home more and looking after the children, to give her a break.
 
What did he do?
 
He started going out more.
 
He was completely selfish.
 

I should have left him then, Sarah thought.
 
But she couldn’t, she felt trapped - how would she cope without Jo?
 
She loved him regardless, and didn’t want to move back in with her parents.
 
However much she loved them she couldn’t live with them, they would drive her crazy.
 
Anyway, Jo had met someone else.
 
He’d slept with her for God’s sake.
 
And she had stayed with him.
 
She still loved him.
 
And yet she hated him.
 
Hated the situation he’d put them in.
 
The ridiculousness of the situation!
 
She pretended everything was ok but it wasn’t.
 

Coming out of her reverie she looked into Daniel’s eyes - he was regarding her closely.
 
Almost as though he was watching her thoughts.
 
Sarah shook her head, there was no point dwelling on that now, but she looked down and put some more chicken in her mouth, as tears came to her eyes.
 
She blinked them back - she would not cry about this again.

At that point Daniel leant his leg against hers.
 
Oh my God, Oh my God.

As heat rose up her neck she concentrated on swallowing and looked over at Bea who was now climbing off her chair as Alice tried to clean her with a napkin.
 
She didn’t move though, she couldn’t move
her leg away.
 
Her leg was tingling delightfully and she had to concentrate to stop herself from shaking.
 
She picked up her glass and took another sip as she looked back to Daniel over it.
 
 
He
 
looked perfectly composed, but just for a moment she had thought she caught a predatory look in his eye.
 

Predatory for her.
 

She felt shocked.
 
Why would he feel that way about her?
 
I am a mother.
 
I’m married.
 
She lived in a small town.
 
She didn’t do anything - didn’t work.
 
Well, she tries to write, but so far she was unpublished.
 
She hadn’t achieved anything.
 

Trying to keep things normal she thought she would take a stab at regular conversation.

‘So, where else have you lived in your tour of lots of places?’

He
laughed,
a small but free and heart-warming sound.
 

‘I actually grew up in the South, near New Orleans.
 
But my father was in the army and we moved a lot.
 
We lived in a couple of places in America, along with some time in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
 
I went to university in England, and since then I’ve spent some time studying at Harvard.
 
But I wanted a change.
 
I wanted some peace.
 
I wanted to try a job I wouldn’t find so taxing so I could focus my time on writing.’

‘Oh really, what kind of thing are you writing?’
 
Sarah was pleased she’d finally gotten him to
open up, but was he telling her the whole truth?
 
Something in his manner caused her to suspect otherwise.

‘I’m writing a fantasy story, about vampires and werewolves.’
 
He looked at her closely, like he was very intrigued by how she would take this information.

‘How compelling,’ she smiled at him, ‘I love fantasy, it sounds exciting, I love plunging into a book and exploring different worlds.’

‘I plan on setting this book here though, in our world.
 
I want to imagine how it would impact a community like this if it was besieged by the supernatural.’

‘Yes, that would be interesting to imagine,’ yet she shivered, wondering where he was going with this.
 
‘You know, I’m also writing a book.’
 
She looked across, into his eyes, interested in how he would respond.
 
She was starting to feel more relaxed now they were actually talking.
 
But his knee was still touching hers and she was very conscious of it.

‘Really, what’s your subject matter?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.

‘Ghost stories, hauntings and the like.’

Sarah looked at
Daniel,
he had just started to open his mouth to reply when they were interrupted.

‘Sarah, Megan wants you to go up and read her a story.’

Sarah jerked her leg away from Daniel, embarrassed as her Dad was looking at them, pushed her chair back and started to rise.

‘I think this is my cue to leave.
 
Goodnight Sarah,’ he said, extending his hand.

Sarah took it and this time felt a warmth spreading through her body.
 
She didn’t want to let go, but made herself release his hand and step back.
 
His attention shifted to the rest of her family as they exchanged farewells and he left the house as Sarah called ‘Goodbye’.
 

She felt an odd sense of loss.
 
There had been no word of seeing him again.
 
But however much Sarah longed after him - he was so beautiful - she resolved it would be best for her, and Jo, if she stayed away from him.
 
He was too tempting.
 

After Megan and Bea were tucked up in bed Sarah tried to call Jo but received no answer.

That night Sarah tossed and turned and dreamt of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, Daniel and Jo.
 
All flitting through her sleeping and waking hours.
 
Haunting images, fearful running, fighting.
 
Jo dead.
 
Daniel’s face.
 

She woke that morning with the image of Daniel still in her mind, at the forefront of her thoughts.
 
Yet she felt uncomfortable, like something was wrong.
 
She couldn’t point her finger at what it was.
 
She reached for her phone and saw Jo hadn’t called her back.
 
That was strange, he would usually
call.
 
Sarah shrugged it off though and started getting herself together for the day.

***

Sebastian parked Jo’s car deep in the woods where nobody would dream of looking for him.
 
He unloaded Jo from the trunk and slung him over his shoulder.
 
Being a vampire had its bonuses, thought Sebastian - Jo was a large man, yet he was easy enough to carry.
 

Sebastian felt full of strength after pretty much draining Jo of life, earlier that evening.
 
His blood had tasted warm and sweet as he’d fed off him outside Jo’s front door.
 

That had been fun, Jo hadn’t even seen him coming before he’d had the pleasure of sinking his fangs into him.
 
Not quite as much fun as drinking from a beautiful woman, he mused, images of previous victims surfacing in his mind.
 
But warm blood straight from a living body was always delicious.

Jo had nearly died then, which would have ruined his plans, but he had managed to give him some of his own blood just in time.
 
Once he was healed Sebastian had influenced him to have a nap on his living room floor and he had watched through a gap in the curtains as Jo had awoken all confused.
 
It had been quite amusing!
 

And then he’d had the stupidity to step out his front door again.
 
What an idiot.
 
His mind obviously hadn’t grasped what had happened - couldn’t absorb
the reality of the situation.
 
But then few people could.
 

If Jo had just been sensible and stayed in his house for a few days, Sebastian wouldn’t have been able to do what he just had - killed him good and proper.
 
He would soon wake up though.
 
But he would be no longer living, not in the proper sense.
 
Half human, half demon.
 
Or so
 
they
 
said,
whoever
 
they
 
were.
 
Not that Sebastian believed in demons.
 
He was what he
was,
in fact, there was probably a perfectly rational scientific explanation for vampirism.
 
Probably.
 

He lay Jo down at the foot of a tree in the place Sebastian presently called home.
 
He liked living in the forest.
 
It was dense, packed with closely growing conifers and spruces.
 
The smell of pine was strong and refreshing.
 
And the tree canopy provided protection from sunlight, even in the day.
 

Sebastian liked to sleep high in a tree during the day, in the form of a bat.
 
He could handle the sunlight.
 
It was a myth that vampires couldn’t go out in the day - yet most preferred the night.
 
Bright sunshine hurt his eyes and made his skin itch.
 
Like there were things crawling under it.
 

Turning into a bat in the day when he slept made it highly unlikely anyone who ventured into the woods would discover him.
 
That’s one thing he would have to teach Jo right away.
 
Animal transformations were very useful for keeping under radar.
 

Jo would need to feed on human blood first though, otherwise he would die.
 
And be truly dead this time.

***

Sarah bundled her kids into the car and made sure they were tightly strapped in.
 
She still hadn’t got through to Jo, the vague memory of him dead in her dream rose to the surface, making her feel a little nauseous.
 
Again she shook the memories of her dream away, preferring to grasp reality.

‘Bye Mom.
 
Bye Dad,’ she shouted and waved.
 
Megan and Bea wove furiously from the back as their Grandparents waved from their door.
 

‘What do you want to do today kiddies, another woodland adventure?’

‘No Mommy, please can we stay in and play little house?
 
How about it Bea, would you like to play little house?’
 
Megan said in that sweet way she did when she decided to be nice to Bea.