“You know, I don’t think alcohol and firearms go together,” James responded to Maria’s call for wine.
“Nonsense,” Maria said, “I haven’t reloaded yet so this is the perfect time for wine.”
“I hate to agree with James,” Martin said, “but I think he’s right. Maybe some coffee or something.”
“I’ll be right back with a couple of bottles and some cups or something,” Maria said as she made her way to the kitchen. “I’ve broken most of the wine glasses over the years so we may have to use coffee cups. Anybody mind drinking wine out of a coffee mug?”
“Works for me,” Adriana said.
Martin sighed and shook his head. “This isn’t going to end well.”
“Oh, don’t be such a gloomy Gus,” Adriana said as she and Molly straightened the furniture that had been knocked out of place during the brief melee.
Maria returned and poured wine into mugs of various sizes and colors. Each person grabbed a mug and immediately took a swig. They sat in silence for a few moments, took another drink, then sat silently again, no one making eye contact, everyone lost in their own thoughts.
It was Molly who decided to break the silence. “So, Maria...” She paused, wanting to choose her words carefully so as not to upset a possible homicidal maniac. “I have to say, you don’t strike me as the type of person who goes around shooting people willy-nilly.”
Maria had been staring at the floor as she drank, but now she raised her eyes to bore holes into Archie’s skull. “He knows why I want him dead.”
“Mom, I have to be honest, you’re scaring me. This is a whole new side of you and it’s kind of frightening.”
“Kind of?” James chuckled. “You saw the way your mother shoots. There’s no doubt about it being frightening.”
After a short pause, Maria’s face broke into a smile and she started laughing. “True, I haven’t practiced in a while.” The smile faded away. “I would have gotten him eventually though.”
“Maybe I should be going,” Archie said while attempting to stand up. Molly grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back down.
“I’d like to know why you want Archie dead,” Molly said.
Martin nodded. “I am kinda curious about that, Mom.”
“It’s okay, Mama Maria,” Adriana said. “Everybody wants to kill someone at some point in their lives. Tell us why you wanted to off this old bastard.”
“Hey!” Archie cried.
“Shut up,” Adriana responded.
Maria’s face clouded over as she poured the last of a bottle of shiraz into her mug, finishing it in one gulp.
“Well, I guess the truth has to come out some time. I always thought I could keep it all secret, but apparently nothing stays secret forever.” She opened another bottle of wine, poured herself a mugful, then let it sit.
James had sat down next to her. He put his arms around her shoulders and said, “Whatever secrets you’ve got, they can’t be all that bad. You can tell us. We would never judge you.”
Maria drew a breath, her shoulders slumped, and her face lost the look of hard stone it had had only a moment ago.
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll tell you. But what’s said in this room, stays in this room.” Maria looked around as everyone nodded or murmured their agreement. “Archie was the first love of my life. Of course, he ended up breaking my heart.”
A look of disgust appeared on Adriana’s face. “Eeuuww! This old coot was your first love? What were you, a great-grandpa chaser?”
“Adriana, please,” Maria said, “let me finish.”
“Sorry.”
“He wasn’t old then. At least, he didn’t look old.”
Martin looked confused. “Wait a second, Mom. You always told me Dad was your first and only love.”
“Yeah, well,” Maria said before she took a long swallow from her mug. “There’s something you need to know.”
“Oh, shit,” Adriana said.
Martin looked at her, then his mother. “Oh shit, what? What’s going on?”
Looking both nervous and relieved, Maria grimaced and said, “Martin, Archie here is your father.” Molly and Adriana attempted to muffle their gasps. James simply said, “Huh.”
Martin had the look of a man hit in the head with a sledgehammer. “You mean you cheated on Dad?”
“No-o-o-o,” Maria said slowly, drawing the word out as long as she could. “Archie and I were married. He was my first and only husband.”
“But, but,” Martin stammered. “How could that be? He doesn’t look anything like the man in the photos that you say is Dad.”
“Well, that was him in those photographs all right,” Maria said, casting a caustic glance at Archie. “He just didn’t age well.”
“That’s because I was ashamed of what I’d done.” Archie leaned forward toward Maria as he spoke. “I went away and waited for death. It just took a few more decades to get to me than I thought it would. The Grim Reaper’s a pokey bastard.”
“If you went away, what the hell are you doing here now?” Maria almost shouted.
“Hold on a minute,” Molly said. “Pardon my bluntness, but if I’m correct, and I usually am about this sort of thing, Archie here is a vampire. True?”
James reached for her mug. “I think you’ve had too much wine.”
Maria didn’t answer, but hung her head.
“It’s true,” Archie said quietly.
“Maybe I’ve had too much,” James said, pushing away his wine mug. “I do not understand any of this. First infidelity that isn’t really infidelity, now you’re talking about vampires like they’re real or something.”
Martin stood up, didn’t know what to do or where to go, and sat back down. “This is just great! My best friend and my mother are having an affair and now I find out my father is a vampire!”
Maria’s head shot up. “What?”
When James finished laughing, he asked, “Why on earth do you think your mom and I are having an affair?”
“Well, you know,” Martin spluttered, “you’re always together, always going off somewhere to be alone. What the hell else am I supposed to think?”
“I told you, Martin, I’m training James to take over the store. Besides, I’m not sure I’m his type anyway.”
James laughed again. “Martin, have you not noticed that I’m gay?”
“You’re what now?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You never noticed? Don’t you remember that time in high school, you walked into the locker room and found me kissing the football coach?”
“I thought you were practicing CPR or something.”
“CPR? Naked? In the shower?”
“Yeah, I suppose that was a little weird. I never really suspected though.”
James rolled his eyes. “You know, I’ve introduced you to my boyfriends over the years.”
“You have?”
“Do you not pay attention to what’s happening in the real world around you?”
“Apparently not.”
“This story is getting really good,” Adriana said over her shoulder as she ran to the kitchen to get more wine. She quickly returned, opened the bottle, and started pouring. “I love screw caps. Much easier to deal with than corks,” she said with a smile. “So, tell us Maria, what happened? What did this old bastard do to make you kick him to the curb?”
“Well,” Maria said with anger seeping into her voice, “for one thing, he never told me he was a blood sucking whore.”
Archie nodded. “That much is true. I thought I could keep my vampirism hidden, that I could maintain self-control, but, I was just lying to myself.”
“I found out the truth one day when I came home from work unexpectedly,” Maria said. “Archie was supposed to be out with the boys but instead I found him on the couch, sinking his fangs into the baby sitter.”
Archie looked wistful. “You should have seen her,” he said to no one in particular. “She had a jugular vein you wouldn’t believe. Stood out on her neck like a big blue river. I couldn’t resist.”
“Pig,” Adriana said.
“It didn’t hurt that she was a teen-age blonde with big boobs,” Maria said.
“No, I guess it didn’t.”
“Pig,” Molly said.
“Hey!” Archie tried to look and sound indignant, but it didn’t work. He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I was a bit of a pig.”
“I should have killed you right then and there,” Maria said, “but I was too freaked out by the whole situation.”
“So what happened next?” Molly asked.
Archie spoke up. “At first I thought, maybe I can talk Maria into the lifestyle. I told her it would be exciting to be married to a vampire.”
“Oh, yeah, Mister Excitement. We stayed home on Saturday nights and watched The Love Boat. Some excitement.”
“I thought that was a really good show. You know, that guy who played Gopher was in Congress.”
Maria lunged for the gun but Adriana swept it up and tucked it underneath the cushion of the chair she sat on. “I probably shouldn’t have left that on the coffee table. Anyway, Maria, take a deep breath and tell us more.”
Maria sank back into the cushions and continued. “Archie explained everything to me, who he was, what he was. I couldn’t stop crying, but it dawned I me that I wasn’t scared of him. When I realized that, I stopped my sobbing and told him to get out. I never wanted to see him again, I never wanted him in this house again. He said he would never return and would never attempt to see Martin.” She looked at her son. “You were young enough then that I knew you wouldn’t remember anything about him. I sent Archie away because I thought that was what was best for you. Until now, everything’s been just fine.”
Martin appeared to be in shock. “I don’t know what to make of any of this.”
“Neither do I,” James said. “I find it hard to believe that vampires really exist.”
“Well, it’s true, we do exist,” Archie responded, “and there’s more of us than you would imagine.”
“Yep, there are vampires in this world,” Adriana said, “and I’m one of them. And where there are vampires, there are vampire killers.” She looked at Molly. “Isn’t that right, little missy?”
Molly remained expressionless as she answered. “Why do you look at me when you say that?”
“I can smell death wish types a mile away. You vampire vigilantes think you can do whatever you want and get away with it.”
Molly’s eyes grew cold. “You mean like when you blood suckers turn someone against their will?”
“You’re right,” Adriana responded. “There’s some bad actors out there who don’t go about their vampire business the right way, but that doesn’t give people like you the right to hand out a death sentence to every vampire you come across. Just what turned you into a vampire killa anyway? Is it the thrill of the chase? Or do you get off on the rush you feel when you kill?”
Molly looked away. “It’s none of your business.”
“It’s my business if you try to kill me or my friends.” She glanced at Archie. “I would have said you can kill the old boy, but now that we know he’s Martin’s father, well...oh, go ahead, kill him anyway.”
Maria grew agitated with all the talk of death. “There’s not going to be any killing tonight. If I can’t kill Archie myself, then no one else can, and I don’t want harm coming to anyone else in this room, do you understand me?”
Adriana looked sheepish. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Molly?”
“Okay,” Molly said quietly, sounding like a little girl being admonished by her mother.
Martin looked over at Archie. “I can’t believe you’re my father. Does that mean I’m a vampire, too?”
Archie smiled. “It doesn’t work like that. You would need to be bitten, or turned so to speak, by a vampire, to become one.”
“You know, Arch,” Adriana said, “your boy here is repulsed by the sight of blood. Faints dead away when he sees it.”
“That proves he’s my boy,” Archie exclaimed with an odd sort of pride. “I was the same way when I was your age, Martin. You can get over it. It’s all about using the strength of your mind. Mind over matter, essentially. Just remember, your mind, anybody’s mind, is an enormously powerful tool.”
“Oh, he’s a tool all right,” Adriana said.
“What if I don’t want to do anything?” Martin asked.
“What’s that?” Archie was confused by the question.
“I really do not understand any of this,” James said. “This is all very odd. It’s like I’ve discovered an entirely new world, but it’s really just the same world, yet completely different, if that makes any sense.”
“I think it does,” Molly said.
Maria turned her mug upside down over the table. A few drops spilled out. “I think I need more wine.”
As the last deep purple droplet hit the table the wind outside picked up. It was a fierce roar, like a giant pride of angry lions bearing down on the house. Tree branches crackled loudly as they bent, then snapped and hit the side of the house. Thunder rumbled and intense, bright flashes of lightning could be seen from every window. As quickly as the wind had whipped up, it became calm. No more thunder, no more lightning.
In an instant the strong odor of sulphur filled the house.
Then the lights went out.
“Nonsense,” Maria said, “I haven’t reloaded yet so this is the perfect time for wine.”
“I hate to agree with James,” Martin said, “but I think he’s right. Maybe some coffee or something.”
“I’ll be right back with a couple of bottles and some cups or something,” Maria said as she made her way to the kitchen. “I’ve broken most of the wine glasses over the years so we may have to use coffee cups. Anybody mind drinking wine out of a coffee mug?”
“Works for me,” Adriana said.
Martin sighed and shook his head. “This isn’t going to end well.”
“Oh, don’t be such a gloomy Gus,” Adriana said as she and Molly straightened the furniture that had been knocked out of place during the brief melee.
Maria returned and poured wine into mugs of various sizes and colors. Each person grabbed a mug and immediately took a swig. They sat in silence for a few moments, took another drink, then sat silently again, no one making eye contact, everyone lost in their own thoughts.
It was Molly who decided to break the silence. “So, Maria...” She paused, wanting to choose her words carefully so as not to upset a possible homicidal maniac. “I have to say, you don’t strike me as the type of person who goes around shooting people willy-nilly.”
Maria had been staring at the floor as she drank, but now she raised her eyes to bore holes into Archie’s skull. “He knows why I want him dead.”
“Mom, I have to be honest, you’re scaring me. This is a whole new side of you and it’s kind of frightening.”
“Kind of?” James chuckled. “You saw the way your mother shoots. There’s no doubt about it being frightening.”
After a short pause, Maria’s face broke into a smile and she started laughing. “True, I haven’t practiced in a while.” The smile faded away. “I would have gotten him eventually though.”
“Maybe I should be going,” Archie said while attempting to stand up. Molly grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back down.
“I’d like to know why you want Archie dead,” Molly said.
Martin nodded. “I am kinda curious about that, Mom.”
“It’s okay, Mama Maria,” Adriana said. “Everybody wants to kill someone at some point in their lives. Tell us why you wanted to off this old bastard.”
“Hey!” Archie cried.
“Shut up,” Adriana responded.
Maria’s face clouded over as she poured the last of a bottle of shiraz into her mug, finishing it in one gulp.
“Well, I guess the truth has to come out some time. I always thought I could keep it all secret, but apparently nothing stays secret forever.” She opened another bottle of wine, poured herself a mugful, then let it sit.
James had sat down next to her. He put his arms around her shoulders and said, “Whatever secrets you’ve got, they can’t be all that bad. You can tell us. We would never judge you.”
Maria drew a breath, her shoulders slumped, and her face lost the look of hard stone it had had only a moment ago.
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll tell you. But what’s said in this room, stays in this room.” Maria looked around as everyone nodded or murmured their agreement. “Archie was the first love of my life. Of course, he ended up breaking my heart.”
A look of disgust appeared on Adriana’s face. “Eeuuww! This old coot was your first love? What were you, a great-grandpa chaser?”
“Adriana, please,” Maria said, “let me finish.”
“Sorry.”
“He wasn’t old then. At least, he didn’t look old.”
Martin looked confused. “Wait a second, Mom. You always told me Dad was your first and only love.”
“Yeah, well,” Maria said before she took a long swallow from her mug. “There’s something you need to know.”
“Oh, shit,” Adriana said.
Martin looked at her, then his mother. “Oh shit, what? What’s going on?”
Looking both nervous and relieved, Maria grimaced and said, “Martin, Archie here is your father.” Molly and Adriana attempted to muffle their gasps. James simply said, “Huh.”
Martin had the look of a man hit in the head with a sledgehammer. “You mean you cheated on Dad?”
“No-o-o-o,” Maria said slowly, drawing the word out as long as she could. “Archie and I were married. He was my first and only husband.”
“But, but,” Martin stammered. “How could that be? He doesn’t look anything like the man in the photos that you say is Dad.”
“Well, that was him in those photographs all right,” Maria said, casting a caustic glance at Archie. “He just didn’t age well.”
“That’s because I was ashamed of what I’d done.” Archie leaned forward toward Maria as he spoke. “I went away and waited for death. It just took a few more decades to get to me than I thought it would. The Grim Reaper’s a pokey bastard.”
“If you went away, what the hell are you doing here now?” Maria almost shouted.
“Hold on a minute,” Molly said. “Pardon my bluntness, but if I’m correct, and I usually am about this sort of thing, Archie here is a vampire. True?”
James reached for her mug. “I think you’ve had too much wine.”
Maria didn’t answer, but hung her head.
“It’s true,” Archie said quietly.
“Maybe I’ve had too much,” James said, pushing away his wine mug. “I do not understand any of this. First infidelity that isn’t really infidelity, now you’re talking about vampires like they’re real or something.”
Martin stood up, didn’t know what to do or where to go, and sat back down. “This is just great! My best friend and my mother are having an affair and now I find out my father is a vampire!”
Maria’s head shot up. “What?”
When James finished laughing, he asked, “Why on earth do you think your mom and I are having an affair?”
“Well, you know,” Martin spluttered, “you’re always together, always going off somewhere to be alone. What the hell else am I supposed to think?”
“I told you, Martin, I’m training James to take over the store. Besides, I’m not sure I’m his type anyway.”
James laughed again. “Martin, have you not noticed that I’m gay?”
“You’re what now?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You never noticed? Don’t you remember that time in high school, you walked into the locker room and found me kissing the football coach?”
“I thought you were practicing CPR or something.”
“CPR? Naked? In the shower?”
“Yeah, I suppose that was a little weird. I never really suspected though.”
James rolled his eyes. “You know, I’ve introduced you to my boyfriends over the years.”
“You have?”
“Do you not pay attention to what’s happening in the real world around you?”
“Apparently not.”
“This story is getting really good,” Adriana said over her shoulder as she ran to the kitchen to get more wine. She quickly returned, opened the bottle, and started pouring. “I love screw caps. Much easier to deal with than corks,” she said with a smile. “So, tell us Maria, what happened? What did this old bastard do to make you kick him to the curb?”
“Well,” Maria said with anger seeping into her voice, “for one thing, he never told me he was a blood sucking whore.”
Archie nodded. “That much is true. I thought I could keep my vampirism hidden, that I could maintain self-control, but, I was just lying to myself.”
“I found out the truth one day when I came home from work unexpectedly,” Maria said. “Archie was supposed to be out with the boys but instead I found him on the couch, sinking his fangs into the baby sitter.”
Archie looked wistful. “You should have seen her,” he said to no one in particular. “She had a jugular vein you wouldn’t believe. Stood out on her neck like a big blue river. I couldn’t resist.”
“Pig,” Adriana said.
“It didn’t hurt that she was a teen-age blonde with big boobs,” Maria said.
“No, I guess it didn’t.”
“Pig,” Molly said.
“Hey!” Archie tried to look and sound indignant, but it didn’t work. He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I was a bit of a pig.”
“I should have killed you right then and there,” Maria said, “but I was too freaked out by the whole situation.”
“So what happened next?” Molly asked.
Archie spoke up. “At first I thought, maybe I can talk Maria into the lifestyle. I told her it would be exciting to be married to a vampire.”
“Oh, yeah, Mister Excitement. We stayed home on Saturday nights and watched The Love Boat. Some excitement.”
“I thought that was a really good show. You know, that guy who played Gopher was in Congress.”
Maria lunged for the gun but Adriana swept it up and tucked it underneath the cushion of the chair she sat on. “I probably shouldn’t have left that on the coffee table. Anyway, Maria, take a deep breath and tell us more.”
Maria sank back into the cushions and continued. “Archie explained everything to me, who he was, what he was. I couldn’t stop crying, but it dawned I me that I wasn’t scared of him. When I realized that, I stopped my sobbing and told him to get out. I never wanted to see him again, I never wanted him in this house again. He said he would never return and would never attempt to see Martin.” She looked at her son. “You were young enough then that I knew you wouldn’t remember anything about him. I sent Archie away because I thought that was what was best for you. Until now, everything’s been just fine.”
Martin appeared to be in shock. “I don’t know what to make of any of this.”
“Neither do I,” James said. “I find it hard to believe that vampires really exist.”
“Well, it’s true, we do exist,” Archie responded, “and there’s more of us than you would imagine.”
“Yep, there are vampires in this world,” Adriana said, “and I’m one of them. And where there are vampires, there are vampire killers.” She looked at Molly. “Isn’t that right, little missy?”
Molly remained expressionless as she answered. “Why do you look at me when you say that?”
“I can smell death wish types a mile away. You vampire vigilantes think you can do whatever you want and get away with it.”
Molly’s eyes grew cold. “You mean like when you blood suckers turn someone against their will?”
“You’re right,” Adriana responded. “There’s some bad actors out there who don’t go about their vampire business the right way, but that doesn’t give people like you the right to hand out a death sentence to every vampire you come across. Just what turned you into a vampire killa anyway? Is it the thrill of the chase? Or do you get off on the rush you feel when you kill?”
Molly looked away. “It’s none of your business.”
“It’s my business if you try to kill me or my friends.” She glanced at Archie. “I would have said you can kill the old boy, but now that we know he’s Martin’s father, well...oh, go ahead, kill him anyway.”
Maria grew agitated with all the talk of death. “There’s not going to be any killing tonight. If I can’t kill Archie myself, then no one else can, and I don’t want harm coming to anyone else in this room, do you understand me?”
Adriana looked sheepish. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Molly?”
“Okay,” Molly said quietly, sounding like a little girl being admonished by her mother.
Martin looked over at Archie. “I can’t believe you’re my father. Does that mean I’m a vampire, too?”
Archie smiled. “It doesn’t work like that. You would need to be bitten, or turned so to speak, by a vampire, to become one.”
“You know, Arch,” Adriana said, “your boy here is repulsed by the sight of blood. Faints dead away when he sees it.”
“That proves he’s my boy,” Archie exclaimed with an odd sort of pride. “I was the same way when I was your age, Martin. You can get over it. It’s all about using the strength of your mind. Mind over matter, essentially. Just remember, your mind, anybody’s mind, is an enormously powerful tool.”
“Oh, he’s a tool all right,” Adriana said.
“What if I don’t want to do anything?” Martin asked.
“What’s that?” Archie was confused by the question.
“I really do not understand any of this,” James said. “This is all very odd. It’s like I’ve discovered an entirely new world, but it’s really just the same world, yet completely different, if that makes any sense.”
“I think it does,” Molly said.
Maria turned her mug upside down over the table. A few drops spilled out. “I think I need more wine.”
As the last deep purple droplet hit the table the wind outside picked up. It was a fierce roar, like a giant pride of angry lions bearing down on the house. Tree branches crackled loudly as they bent, then snapped and hit the side of the house. Thunder rumbled and intense, bright flashes of lightning could be seen from every window. As quickly as the wind had whipped up, it became calm. No more thunder, no more lightning.
In an instant the strong odor of sulphur filled the house.
Then the lights went out.
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