Living in Darkness (Bloodbreeders) (35 page)

           
“How can you know that?” I asked.

           
“Ashley sometimes sees things. She’s always done it,”
Brandon explained.

           
“Never once been wrong either…might want to listen to
her, Renee,” Derek added.

           
“My ma use to tell me stories about folks like you that
had special gifts.” I remembered her words as if she had just said them to me.
“Bo, pull over by those trees.” Once we had come to a stop I turned back to
Ashley. “I need you to try really hard, and tell me what you see inside that
house. Can you do that for me?”

           
“Sure, I’ll try.”
 

           
I watched as Ashley closed her eyes and a few seconds
later her head fell back against the seat. At first she was completely calm, then
out of nowhere her body began to convulse and foam started running from her
mouth. I was over the backseat and had her by the shoulders within seconds. As
soon as my hands touched her skin, images began flashing through my mind. Three
men eating out of cans by a fireplace, and in a form of slow motion my eyes
moved across the room until I saw two little girls covered in filth, crying.
They were tied together at the wrists, facing one another. “Shut the fuck up,
or you’ll end up just like your ma,” came from one of the men.

           
All of the sudden my vision flashed to a woman doing the
dishes, singing a song. She had no idea that she was being watched from the
dark shadows of the night. Then just as fast as that vision came, the next that
followed was almost too much to bear. The woman was lying face down in a pool
of blood. Her head had been crushed in, she wasn’t wearing a stitch of
clothing, and the two children watched in horror the entire time. My eyes flew
open and I found that Ashley and I were both screaming.

           
The boys were pulling us apart. Brandon had to pin Ashley
down in the seat, because she was thrashing about so bad. “They killed her...
they killed her,” I heard Ashley crying over and over. I sat there in utter
shock at what my mind had just witnessed. My breath came out as if I had run
for miles without stopping, and my heart was racing in my chest to the point of
exploding.

 
          
“We
have to do something, right now,” I said looking up at Bo as he held me against
the seat. “Let me go, Bo. I’m fine.”
 

           
He slowly removed his hands from my arms as if he wasn’t
sure, and as soon as he did I took Ashley in mine. “
Shhh
...
it’s
ok now, babe. I’m sorry you had to see that, but honey
you just saved two little girls lives. Now wipe those beautiful eyes, we have
work to do.” She nodded, gave me one final hug and sobbed as quietly as she
could under the circumstance. I told the others what I, what we had just
witnessed, but before I could let them in on my plan, they were out the door
and headed for the house.

           
“Shit,” I said
out loud
.
“Ashley, honey,
are
you going to be okay staying in
the car by yourself? I have to go after them.”

           
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, just get the girls. Renee, those are
really bad men. What they did to the little girls...” She started crying all
over again.

           
I gave her a quick hug, and a promise that I would do as
she asked, but I had to hurry. My boys were pissed and those men could have
guns. As soon as my mind thought on the harm the men could cause them, I ran at
full speed. I came to a sudden stop at the tree line next to the yard,
searching for any sign of my boys. I almost missed them, because they were
hidden so well in the shadows. They moved in perfect unison on their stomachs
in the grass, making their way up to the back of the house, moving like cats
sneaking up on a juicy mouse. I watched in silence until they reached the back
door, then I clapped my hands together one time, causing them to freeze in
their tracks.

           
I held my hand up in a gesture, telling them to wait
where they were. I then sprinted across the yard to the front door. I could
only hope that they had some idea of what I was doing, and wouldn’t try
breaking down the back door before I had a chance to put what little plan I
had, into motion. I reached the steps and called out, “Betty, you home? Got
them eggs you asked
fer
.” I slowly made my way up to
the door. I was hearing all kinds of movement in the house now, from furniture
being shoved around, to shuffling of heavy feet.

           
I knocked twice on the door and was about to call out for
the second time, when the door swung open. A large man with a half grown,
straggly beard and so much filth on his face you couldn’t tell what nationality
he was, grabbed me by the throat and pulled me inside, shutting the door behind
us. “Looks like we got ourselves
another round boys
.”
The other two started walking closer so I played a little more helpless than I
really was. One started to grope at my breast.

           
“Wait, please don’t hurt me,” I cried
out
loud
. As soon as the words left my mouth, my boys made their entrance.
The man that held my throat was so shocked by the presence of the boys, that he
never saw my hand go through his body.

           
The man’s hand fell from my throat landing on my arm that
now, looked as if it were a deformity attached to his body. His eyes traveled from
their gaze at my arm, looking up as if in slow motion to meet mine. Once locked
with my glare, they rolled back into his head, as his body slid off my arm and
crashed to the floor, leaving me holding parts of his entrails in my hand. I
threw the gore to the floor and looked over to the other two men that stood
beside me. One went for a weapon he had on his belt, and the other one pulled a
gun from the front of his pants.

           
My boys were on them so fast that they never had a chance
to use them. Little Derek was like a wild animal. He jumped on the back of the
man closest to him, pulling his head back at a painful looking angle. He opened
his mouth wide revealing his new set of long fangs, and the man began to
scream. Derek laughed
out loud
then bit down on the
front of the man’s throat before pulling back, ripping his wind pipe completely
out. The man fell to his knees, with Derek still on his back saying, “You
should have never hurt that woman. I’m the devil and you’re paying your due.”

           
The other man tried to run for the door, but Bo got there
first. He pulled his long blade, as the man pointed his gun. Bo brought the
blade up in a movement so fast, that I don’t think the man ever saw it move,
and only felt his hand when it left his body. He grabbed his wrist and started
screaming. “You cut my fucking hand off.”

           
“And what did you do to those little girl’s, mother?” Bo
asked, raising the blade above his head.

           
“No! Wait… Please,” the man cried, raising the only hand
that he had left.

           
“I bet that’s the very same thing that she said.”

           
Bo came down with the blade, slicing the man, starting at
the forehead and ending at his mid-stomach. The man blinked, almost as if he
thought Bo missed, then he fell forward, pushing Bo’s blade deeper into his
body. Bo put a foot on the blood soaked corpse and kicked him backwards, in
order to retrieve his blade.

           
We three Bo, Derek, and myself stood there covered in
blood, looking down at our first kill as a family. “They were really bad men,
right Renee?” Derek asked. His face was covered with that man’s blood, and yet
he still looked so innocent.

           
“They were very bad men,” I replied.
 
I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about what had
just happened, until I looked over and saw the woman on the floor. She was face
down, with her legs spread. Her hands were tied behind her back, and nothing
covered her body but scrapes and bruises.

            
Suddenly Derek started kicking the
dead man at his feet. “You sick son-of-a-bitch.”

           
“Derek...Derek,” I yelled, but he never answered.

           
There was no doubt that he had seen the woman just as I
had, just as we all had by now. I walked over to him and pulled him into my
arms. “Listen to me. You’re a hero to these little girls, we all are.”

           
“You did a great job Derek,” Bo said putting his arms
around the two of us. “Hell, boy, I didn’t even know you could move like that.”

           
“I don’t really remember too much. I kind of lost it when
I saw Renee with that hand on her throat.”

           
“Me too, but I saw the woman when we came in,” Bo added.

           
“What about them?” Brandon called out.

 
          
He
crouched down in front of what I assumed was the little girls. Brandon covered
them with a blanket, and was protecting them from seeing even worse carnage
than what they had already witnessed as we took care of the men. “Sorry I
didn’t help with that,” he said as he pointed. “But, they’ve seen enough.”
Brandon was the true heart of our little group

           
“I’m really glad you thought about them, and you’re right
they’ve seen way too much,” I replied.

           
“Want me to take them in the other room? I’ll untie them
in there. I’m good with kids,” Brandon asked looking up at me.

           
“You have a good head on your shoulders. Thanks for being
the responsible one.” I smiled down at him, grateful that at least one of us
had thought of the children.

           
“No problem, I’m used to it,” he replied with a small
smile of his own.

           
I don’t think Brandon or myself wanted the girls to see
the three of us covered in blood. So he took the girls in the next room and
closed the door. The three of us looked at the bodies and started the task at
hand. I told the boys that I would take care of the woman once we had finished
removing the bodies of the men.

           
“Why don’t we just put all three of them on a blanket and
drag them out to the trees and bury them. It would be easier than taking out
one at a time,” Derek suggested.

           
“That’s twice tonight that you’ve fooled me. Good
thinking,” Bo replied, slapping him on the back.”

           
“Ouch, that stung.” Derek made a face, reaching back to
touch where Bo had slapped him.

           
“I agree, as soon as we get these...things out of here,
y’all can bury them and I’ll get back in here and start cleaning this up. That
way we can bring the girls by the fire. I’m going to put the woman in one of
those back rooms, so her family can come and give her a proper burial,” I added
as I spread the blanket that Bo found crumpled by the couch.

 
          
Once
we got the bodies into the middle of the trees behind the house, Bo and Derek
started digging a shallow grave. I went back into the house, grabbed another
blanket, and laid it next to the woman. I took out my knife and cut her hands
free from the tight rope that bound them; her arms didn’t move due to the
rigor-mortis, so I moved them down to her side and rolled her over and onto the
blanket. I threw myself back so fast that I hit my head on the wall. Neither my
eyes nor my mind could believe what they saw. The woman was pregnant; her
swollen belly was a deep dark purple. I looked up her nude body, seeing that
her breasts were also a dark purple. The only difference in the woman’s breast
was one had the nipple horrifically bitten off. Her face was no face at all,
her lower jaw was all that was intact and it lay in a frozen, morbid smile.
They had crushed the rest in so badly that she was no longer recognizable. As I
lowered my gaze down her body I began to heave. What I hadn’t noticed while she
was lying on her stomach, I wished I had never seen now. There was a tiny foot
protruding from her privates. The men had forced themselves on her with such
violence they had caused the baby to start its birthing process. I threw the
cover over her and started throwing up, and did not stop until my stomach was
empty. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes.

           
“No wonder Ashley was so messed up,” I said
out loud
without thinking.

           
“I was, and I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you needed me, I
just...” Ashley said standing in the door way.

           
“No, no, Please,” I replied getting up and taking her in
my arms. “You can’t think of it like that, after seeing firsthand what you saw,
no one’s going to think a thing about you not coming in. You did an amazing job
in seeing what was going on, if you hadn’t, those little girls would have ended
up just like her.”