Birth of Jaiden (4 page)

“
Burying it won’t make it
go away.”

“
Maybe not, but it’s my
prerogative to pretend that it didn’t happen.” Even as he said
this, he knew that the nightmares and the memories were burned into
his mind forever. “I’m so sorry that I have given you this burden
to bear, but I have never spoken of it, and I still don’t have any
intention of doing so.”

“
Don’t you think that may
be why this is so hard for you, because you keep it buried inside?
You know, that’s why people see shrinks…”

“
Maybe.”

“
I respect you, Alex, and
I won’t push you, but you need to know that I am here for you if
you ever…you know, need someone.”

Relieved, Alex muttered,
“Thank you.”

Chris returned to the
recliner. “I want you to know one more thing: I have a vague idea
about what happened. The connection I was talking about before
seems to have come with its own set of visions.”

“
Ok.”
Good thing I’m not alive or this
would probably shock the life out of me
. “Are you saying that you can see my
thoughts?” The idea that Chris might actually be able to see why he
was hurting was almost too much to digest.

“
Like I said before, don’t
worry about me, Alex, it’s you I worry about. I don’t know how you
can bear it.”

“
Chris, I’m sorry, I’m
just not ready.”

“
It’s ok.”

“
Thank you
.”

After a long and
uncomfortable silence, Chris began to pace the room. “Alex, I’m
bored; let’s go do something.”

“
It’s only a few hours
until dawn.”

“
So, we’ll make it
back.”

“
I want to stay
here.”

Chris shook his head. “See,
Alex, this is half the reason you are so depressed; you stay inside
cooped up all the time. You are
immortal
,” Chris waved his hands in the air for
emphasis, “you have all the time in the world to do everything you
have ever even thought of doing. Mortals have time against them and
some of them die without doing anything they wanted to do. You
should live it up and take advantage of the gift that you have been
given.”

“
I don’t need a lecture, Chris;
I have been given a curse,
not
a gift, and I hate what I am. I beg the Lord every
night to forgive me for what I am.”

“
It wasn’t your choice,
Alex.”

“
I know, but that doesn’t
make it any better.”

Chris slumped back into
the recliner and threw up his hands. “See, Alex, you need to
lighten up and have some fun.”

“
So now
you’re
a shrink?”

“
Oh, and you want to be a
joker.”

Alex was actually fighting
to keep a straight face. “I’m not joking.”

“
Ok, fine, I’ll leave it
alone, but…”

“
Stop it,
Chris.”

“
No, listen, I know you’re
hungry, so let’s go eat.”

Alex lowered his head.
“You got me on that one.”

“
Well, let’s
go.”

As he didn’t want to
acknowledge his hunger, he silently rose and followed Chris to get
their coats.

4

Sunlight shone on him;
sunlight he hadn’t seen for over a hundred years. He squinted his
eyes into slits and looked around. He saw that he was in a large
field of tall golden grass. An enormous oak tree, with its thick
branches spread far and wide, stood in the center of the field and
soaked up the sunlight. He mimicked the tree, spread out his arms
and tilted his face towards the cloud peppered sky. He closed his
eyes and let the long forgotten warmth envelope him.

Underneath his eyelids, he
saw little black dots that floated around and then disappeared. He
could feel droplets of sweat start to form in the space between his
nose and upper lip. He let his tongue slip out and taste the
saltiness of sweat he hadn’t felt for a hundred years.

“
Daddy.”

His eyes popped open. He
spun in a circle until he was again facing the massive oak.
Attached to the tree with a thick rope was a tire swing that hadn’t
been there before. A young girl sat in the swing. She looked to be
about ten years old.

A head of fiery auburn
curls surrounded her face which appeared to be as white as his. The
strangest thing were her eyes; they were beautiful black eyes that
he had seen somewhere before.

“
Daddy, come push
me.”

Even though they were
alone, Alex knew she wasn’t talking to him; he didn’t have a
daughter anymore.

“
Daddy, come
on.”

She slid off her swing and
ran in his direction. Her pink sundress with white flowers grazed
the grass as she ran. When she got to him, she took his hand in
both of hers.

Giggling, she pulled and
pulled until he let her pull him towards the swing.

Suddenly, she stopped and
looked up at him with wide eyes. “Daddy, don’t you want to push me?
You said you would.”

Alex didn’t know what to
say. He thought she had him mistaken for someone else, but if she
couldn’t find her daddy, then damn it, he would push
her.

Alex jerked up and smacked his
head on the lid of his coffin.
Dreaming
. Yes, he had been dreaming. He slowly
opened the lid and thought about how strange it was that he would
only get to see the sunlight when he was locked inside that
thing.

After he had dressed, he
went to his car. Rain still poured out of the darkened sky. While
he drove, visions of the young girl from his dream clouded his
mind; she had looked just like his daughter would have if she had
lived to that age.

The eyes were his
daughter’s, but it was not her. He would have known his own
daughter. Why would he dream of a girl calling him daddy that was
not his own child?

He stopped in front of the
church and ran up the stairs to the entrance. Once again, he knelt
in front of the altar and bowed his head.

“
Lord, why do you bring me
such strange dreams? I have never seen the child that came to me in
my sleep.

I don’t understand and,
therefore, I feel helpless; is it your will that I feel this way? I
have been so powerful for so long that every now and then I need to
be shown my place. Is that what is happening? Because it is
working. I have seen a lot of strange and terrible things; not much
gets me worked up these days, but that dream really bothered me. It
confuses me. There will be much death and innocents will perish
along with the evil in the days to come. Malcolm is a true demon;
he and his consorts must die so that some peace can come into this
world. Please, Lord, guide me through the days that are ahead of
me.

Also, could you help free
Chris from this pain that he carries because of me? He does not
deserve to bear my burden. I would never knowingly do anything to
hurt him, and yet I have been doing it all along.

Thank you for all that you
have given to me. I am always in your debt. Amen.”

After he had finished
praying, he sat in a pew to absorb the pure tranquility of the
church…the peace.

Whenever he was in the
church, he felt like his troubles were gone; but the minute he
left, they returned. Alex sat for some time and then forced himself
to leave.

The moment he stepped
outside, the rain intensified. Still, he decided to take a walk
instead of going straight to the casino.

He trudged carelessly
through the rapidly flooding water without giving a single thought
to his expensive shoes or leather jacket.

The rain certainly didn’t
stop the night life of the city. Teenagers stood around smoking and
laughing, drunks staggered back and forth, and women in evening
gowns shared the shelter of awnings with homeless people. Men in
business suits, drug dealers, male and female prostitutes, and
runaways all roamed the streets together. Right in the middle of
them were, of course, your average, run of the mill
vampires.

Alex closed his mind after
a few minutes of being in the crowds; the voices and thoughts of so
many people echoed too loudly in his head. He paid little attention
to others so they made their way around him.

He walked and walked until
he noticed that there were hardly any people on the sidewalks
anymore. He had made his way into a residential area, though it
wasn’t a nice one.

When he finally came out
of his fog of thoughts enough to pay attention to his surroundings,
he wasn’t surprised at why the pedestrian traffic had slowed so
much. Garbage floated down the gutters like little paper sailboats
and glass from broken bottles threatened to puncture the soles of
his shoes. There were even hypodermic needles tossed carelessly
onto the ground.

He kept his fast pace,
which was a full out sprint for a human, and made his way through
the squalid neighborhood. Many of the houses looked like they
should be condemned. The streets were completely empty except for a
few stray dogs looking for scraps. The dogs whimpered and gave him
a wide berth when he passed.

He slowed to a normal
human paced walk because he heard footsteps. Far away, but coming
his way. Alex perked up his senses and heard the footsteps turn out
of an alley and start to follow him. He could smell that it was a
man. He sighed. Even without reading his mind, he knew what was
going to happen; it wasn’t the first time nor would it be the
last.

When he felt the human
close enough behind him, he came to an abrupt stop. He could smell
the humans’ blood when it suddenly began to pump faster. Swiftly,
his coat fanning out in circular motion, Alex turned to face
him.

The young man’s right hand
flew up and planted a nine millimeter Smith and Wesson in Alex’s
face. Just as quickly, the young man’s surprise turned to fear.
Alex propelled forward with lightning speed, grabbed each of the
guy’s arms in his powerful fists and pinned him against the brick
wall behind them. The gun fell to the ground with a dull
clatter.

“
What do you want?” Alex
hissed.

“
N…nothing,” the other guy
stammered.

“
You were going to rob
me.”

“
No,” the man pled, “no, I
swear I was just walking.”

“
Liar.” Alex
seethed.

“
No, please, I’m
not.”

Alex held him
spread-eagled against the wall, so close that he could feel the
young man’s heart beating against his own chest.

“
Then why did you carry a
weapon?” For emphasis, Alex squeezed the stranger’s left hand and
slammed it into the wall. There was a crackling sound as the bones
in his hand were shattered. Bits of brick rained down onto the
sidewalk.

The man screamed in pain
and then finally managed to whimper. “P…please let me
go.”

Control became less of an
option now; Alex’s anger blazed through his body like a spreading
fire. These kinds of people, he knew their kind. They sat silently
in the shadows and preyed upon innocent people that they could rob
or rape, then kill.

He wanted to tease him,
make him think he had a chance.

“
Oh, so you think I should
let you go?” he asked him although he had no intention of doing
so.

“
Yes…yes. I promise, I
won’t bother you again…or anyone,” he added when Alex didn’t
release him.

Alex leaned closer so that
his mouth almost touched the guy’s ear and whispered, “I know you
won’t hurt anyone else.”

Then he pulled his head
back so that they were face to face. Alex opened his mouth and let
the man watch as what appeared to be normal teeth grew into
fangs.

“
Oh my
god
.” The man started to struggle and scream,
writhing around like a mouse in a trap. Alex brought his mouth to
the pulsing artery in his neck and pierced the tender
skin.

When the blood started to
flow, he suctioned his mouth against the skin. The warm fluid that
was the young man’s life force became his own. When he drank, he
was not himself; he was the monster.

He drank until there was no
life left in the man; then he released him and let his body fall to
the ground with a sickening thump. He hated killing; he hated that
he needed blood, and worse, that he
liked
the blood.

Alex fell to his knees
next to the dead man’s bloody body and wept. It felt like he was
sitting on the cold wet cement for an eternity, waiting for the
rain to wash away any traces of blood. He didn’t want to move; he
felt no less guilty for taking the life of a man who would go to
hell anyway. He was no one’s judge. Looking up into the cloud
blackened night, the rain on his face, he whispered, “Lord, please
forgive me.”

When he had regained his
composure, he started to walk even faster than before. As he moved,
his body tingled from the revitalizing effect of fresh blood. His
sight was sharper, so sharp that he could see each rain drop fall
and separate like diamond shards. He kept his mind closed because
he didn’t want to hear anything but the drumming of the
rain.