"I hitchhiked for a couple of years doing odd jobs wherever I could, sleeping wherever I dropped. It went on like that for a while until one night I got busted stealing eggs out of this farmer’s coup. The Sheriff tossed me in a cage and it wasn’t long before the locals decided to string me up. All kinds of rumors started spreading around town. One was that I’d been caught in bed with the farmer’s daughter another that I’d killed his dog. Pure lies of course, but it was enough to stir up the local ‘good ole boys’. ‘Lucky’ for me an eccentric old rich fella spoke up for me and said he'd take responsibility for me. He paid off the Sherriff, the farmer, and his trigger-happy friends and late one night snuck me out the back of the jail.
“So at sixteen I was essentially adopted by a man by the name of Burrows. I couldn't believe it. A sixteen year old being taken in by a rich man is pure fairy tale nonsense. It just doesn’t happen. Especially to a young black man in 1950's Oklahoma! As it turns out my luck wasn’t so good after all as I found out my first day there. The good Mr. Burrows turned out to be a vampire. A Maker."
"Did he adopt you to feed on you?”
"No. It wasn't quite that simple. He wanted a, uh . . . he wanted a companion. If you know what I mean . . . he uh, well I’ll just tell you. He was
into
young men. Young black men.”
“Oh,” Jake said, his eyes growing large.
“I found out later that I was the sixth one he'd attempted to turn."
"So what happened? How did you escape?"
"The day after I arrived he tied me up in his basement. I tried to fight him off but he was just too damn strong. I’d gotten pretty lean and mean working my uncle's farm and surviving on the road since, but this man, who was at least in his sixties, laid me out cold with one punch. I don’t have to tell you Jake, when I woke up to find those ropes tightly wound around my wrists I was terrified. I can tell you without hesitating that I’ve never been so scared in my entire life, and since then I've served two tours in Nam and faced down more bloodsuckers than I can recollect. But nothing and I mean nothing compares to the day I was locked in a basement with a Maker."
Billy paused his story taking a long swig of iced tea, the ice clinked against the glass as he emptied it. "Ahhhh. So anyway, the thing I remember most was that he talked all the damn time! Kept going on and on about immortality and drinking blood, about loneliness, and longing to love and be loved. Said he wanted me to be just like him. A gift he called it. Said we could live together forever.
“At the time I just assumed he was as crazy as a bed bug. All day long, he droned on about how crazy the world had gotten, how he missed the feel of the sun on his face. Every so often he would walk over and hold my face with his ice cold hands and beg me to stay with him."
"What did you say?" Jake interrupted.
"What could I say? I didn’t want to get raped or murdered by this psychopath! I told him exactly what he wanted to hear! I told him I would do whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t hurt me. He burst into tears and began dancing around, clapping his hands, giggling like a schoolgirl. Literally giggling . . . I can still hear it in my head. Creepiest damn thing that I have
ever
seen!” Billy closed his eyes shaking his head.
After a few moments of silence he finally spoke. “Not long after that he left. Promised he'd bring me back something special. ‘My first real meal’ he called it.
“The second that basement door closed I started working on the ropes binding my wrists. There was no way in hell I was going to let that creep do whatever it was he had in mind to do. I thought all his talk of immortality was just that, talk. I had no clue what he
really
was. So I worked and strained until my wrists were sticky and slick with my own blood. By morning I'd gotten completely out of the ropes, my wrists looked like hamburger, but I was free. I made it to the top of the stairs when I heard him moving around upstairs. I stood there with my ear pressed against the door, my heart pounding, and sweat dripping down my face like rain.” Billy paused and began rubbing his wrists, almost as if he was reliving the fear.
Jake was about to say something when Billy suddenly cleared his throat and continued. "He got all the way to the door and was actually turning the knob when the first shot rang out. Then another, and another; I heard him screaming and crying, begging for his life. Then I heard a loud thud and the screams stopped. The door opened and two men were pointing guns at me. One of those men was a very young Cort Bishop. The other was your Great Grandfather Roland Bishop. Cort was screaming at me like a mad man!" Billy laughed. "I remember thinking to myself, great, out of the frying pan into the fire!
“So these two crazy white fellas, armed to the teeth with enough firepower and ammunition to rob every bank in the state of Oklahoma, drag me outside past the headless body of Mr. Burrows and right into the morning sunlight. Only then did they seem to relax.
“Long story short, they told me all about vampires and explained what almost happened to me. I didn’t believe them at first. Then they drug his body out into the sunshine . . . there wasn’t much doubting them after that.”
Jake nodded, remembering the charred skull of Marty White staring back at him from that dirt road not far outside of Lubbock.
“Roland, God bless him,” Billy continued, “over the next few years, helped me get back on my feet. Taught me how to hunt, a few years later I joined Cort’s crew along with Big Mike Casino, Tommy Turner, and a few other boys that came and went. Forty some odd years later here I am."
"That's amazing, Billy," Jake said in complete awe. "Absolutely amazing."
"I don't know about amazing. Damn near insane sounds more fitting to me. What kind of a man goes through all of that then hunts the damn things for a living?"
"A man who wants to make sure that what happened to you never happens to anyone ever again," Jake said, sitting up straight in his chair. This was an area he could definitely relate to.
"I thought that once," Billy said, with a sad smile. "Until Terry died. Then it dawned on me that the personal cost was more than I could bear. I’d been protecting complete strangers at the cost of my own family and friends.
“My first wife left me less than two years after we were married. Took my daughter Pam, and just left one day. Called me a crazy, selfish bastard that would only bring pain and death to my family. I guess she was right . . . to this day Pam hates my stinking guts. I guess she still blames me for Terry’s death. Can’t say that I blame her. If it weren’t for me, he never would have gotten into hunting. Then again if I didn’t do what I did Ben would be dead and I wouldn’t have him as my son.”
“I didn’t know Ben was your son,” Jake said.
Billy nodded thoughtfully then broke the toothpick in half, dropping it to his plate. “Poor kid, I found him hiding in a closet in a house full of grunts. His parents, brother, and sisters had all been killed on or turned.” He sighed heavily at the memory. “We cleansed the house and torched it but Ben didn’t have anywhere to go. No surviving family, no family friends that we were able to find. So I adopted him. Seemed like the right thing to do.”
“How old was he?” Jake asked. “Does he remember it?”
“Well . . .” Billy started. “He was only four years old so luckily most of the memories have faded. Unfortunately he still remembers his mother being turned. He told me once that nearly every night he dreams about her face with those crimson, hungry eyes staring after him.”
Jake had had almost the exact same dream since his mother’s disappearance. He liked to think that she had passed on, but there was always the chance she had been turned into one of them. “Does it ever get any easier?” Jake asked suddenly seeing his mother’s smiling green eyes before his face. “I mean, sometimes I can go almost an entire day without thinking about her, then like a punch to the gut she pops into my head and I feel guilty for
not
thinking about her. The nightmares . . . the nightmares are the worst . . . I don’t know, it just sucks. Dad has stopped searching, but I think in his heart she’s still alive somewhere. Suffering, hurting.”
“It gets easier. It just takes time. John will be okay. He has you and he has Cort, as crazy as the old coot is, and though for a while I think he forgot, he has all of us.”
“I hope so,” Jake said sadly. “He doesn’t talk about her at all.”
“After Terry died I didn’t think I could go on anymore. I always knew it was more than a possibility that one day it would happen. You don’t live our kind of life and not experience loss.” He crunched on some ice from his glass and stared out the large bay window behind Jake. “The boy was just so damn good! I had never seen a hunter with skills like his. He was strong, swift as a fox, and agile; he did things with that big battle-axe of his that would boggle the mind. I swear the man could toss it around like it was a damn broomstick! I didn’t think anything could hurt him.”
“Dad always said he was good,” Jake agreed.
“Turns out he wasn’t good enough though,” Billy looked down at the glass in his hand. “I see so much of him in those kids. Donnie, it blows my mind how much he’s like Terry. Almost the spitting image of him, strong, fast, a natural leader, even has his laugh. How is that possible? And Amber, that girl may not look it but she is tough as nails. She can put Donnie on his ass if he makes the mistake of messing with her!” He laughed.
“He’s not a bad pool hustler either.” Jake smiled.
And Amber is smoking hot!
He thought, smiling even bigger.
Billy laughed even harder. “I should have warned you to watch out for that. The kid is pretty good on the table. He’s even been known to beat me a time or two, and Chris! That kid could play professionally. Just like Benny!”
More than ever Jake was sure that he liked Billy Williams. The man had so much dark, angry history but he somehow managed to keep his sense of humor and more importantly his humanity. He could see why his dad loved the man so much. There was an aura about him that just drew you in.
"You know Jake, I honestly don’t know what I would do if something happened to those kids." Billy frowned. "I just hate it that any of you have to go through this.” He leaned forward in his chair his hands balling into fists. “Johnny tried to get you and your mom out. Tried harder than any man I know. Maybe if Terry had gotten out . . ." he trailed off, “but they found him. They always do.” His eyes glimmered with tears, then instantly turned to rage. He slammed both fists down on the table with enough force to shake every dish on the table. “Someone has got to put a stop to this,” he said between clenched teeth. “Someone has got to draw a line in the sand and say ENOUGH! For my Terry, for your mom, for Tommy and all the other hunters that died before their time, for Ben’s family.” He started breathing heavily. "
That's
why I do what I do. If we can’t get out then by God neither can they. There will be no truce, no live and let live. It’s us or them."
Jake was speechless. For a second he'd seen a fire in the gentle man's eyes he wouldn't have dreamed possible. After a minute, Billy composed himself. "Sorry about that. Sometimes I just get a little fired up is all."
"That's alright Billy.” Jake nodded. “I understand completely. They took my mom. They nearly took me."
Billy leaned back in his chair relaxing a bit. “Johnny told me about what happened in Georgia. Lucky thing you had some new friends watching your back.”
I knew this would come up sooner or later.
Jake sighed inwardly.
“I talked on the phone to Nathan Bishop about a month after John got back. I tried to get him to tell me a little about their organization, but he wouldn't talk about it at all. A couple of months ago I called and told him about the training program we had set up for you kids and offered his people the same thing. He very politely turned me down, said goodbye and hung up. I haven’t talked to him since.” Billy scrunched his brows. “To tell you the truth Jake, I’m not quite sure what to make of any of it. Is there anything else you can tell me? About him or his people?”
“I don’t know what it would be,” Jake said, scrunching his brow. “Everything I knew I told Grandpa and Dad.”
Billy rubbed at the stubble on his face. “Did you meet any of them other than Nathan?”
“No, he was the only one. But I mean, someone had to kill all of those Makers. Before I escaped, I heard a couple of them talking. One of them seemed downright terrified of whoever was out in those woods.
“But you never saw them? Never talked to anyone but Nathan?”
“No Billy, I mean . . . why, what’s this about?”
“It’s probably nothing.” Billy shrugged. “I just find it strange that I have talked to just about every hunter I have ever met and not a single, solitary one has ever met or heard of a group of hunters stationed in Georgia. Far as we know, there has never been any vampire activity east of the Mississippi. At least not in the past two hundred years.”
“That is
weird
.” Jake agreed. “Maybe these guys just run in different circles.”
“Hunters are a pretty tight knit group. Sure there are some outsiders like Wes and his
Slaye,
” Billy said, motioning behind him with his head as if Wes Turner was standing directly behind him. “For the most part everyone shares information and back each other’s plays. Even more so since we started the Coalition. For no one to have heard of these guys is beyond strange.”
“I wish I could tell you more, Billy,” Jake said seriously. “All I know is that if Nathan and his guys hadn’t showed up, I wouldn’t be here now.”
Billy sat there quietly drumming his fingers on the table as he thought. “If only there was a way to set up a meet and greet between us and them. Now he won’t even return my phone calls.”
“Can I ask you something, Billy?” Jake said, changing the subject.
“Anything kid, what’s up?”