The radio in the priest’s Lincoln read 1 AM as they continued on Route 90 through Indiana. Cody had fallen asleep somewhere around South Bend, leaving Luke alone with his disquieted thoughts.
Every quarter mile or so, he looked from the road to his son snoring with his head pressed against the window. Cody was still his son. Right?
Three hours earlier, Luke watched the boy leap through the air and stab a vampire - a Goddamn vampire - in the heart with a Crucifix.
It didn’t seem real. None of it. The day before was Cody’s tenth birthday. Luke bought him a headset and gaming chair. Cody never even opened it. Luke promised to take him for ice cream on the way home from his grandparents. It was tradition. Instead, they were on the road to Philadelphia - with nine hours to go, running from vampires. Or running toward vampire hunters. Luke wasn’t exactly sure.
Trying to make sense of it made his head spin. He shook his head violently, hoping to rattle the lunacy from between his ears. He cranked the knob on the radio, but the priest had satellite Luke couldn’t figure out the prests.
Where’s the scan button? Ah, forget it.
What kind of priest has satellite radio? Aren’t they supposed to be charitable?
And Luke’s thoughts returned to the rectory.
-----
Timmault grabbed him by the hand and led him out of the guest bedroom, stepping over the lifeless priest. Along the hallway was a single streak of blood, shoulder height to Luke. The priest must have held himself up against the wall. Luke felt lightheaded. Halfway down the stairs, he thought he might pass out. He stopped and held his head in his hand. Just then, Cody let go of his other hand.
“Shit,” the boy said.
Dizzy, Luke still reacted to his son swearing. “Cody,” he snapped faintly.
Cody ran past him, back up the stairs. Before Luke could ask why, Cody returned - car keys in one hand and a Crucifix in the other, blood dripping from the bottom.
Cody walked past him and down the stairs, this time not stopping to grab his hand.
“What do you need the Crucifix for?” But when Luke passed his son, he answered his own question.
The old woman who had been standing in the doorway lay on the floor covered in blood. She writhed in pain, her chest arched toward the ceiling. Her jaw contorted unnaturally upward, and she was hissing.
“My God,” Luke said. “Is she -”
Before he could finish, Cody reached her and plunged the Crucifix into her chest just as he had the priest…
-----
There were no other cars on the road so late in the night. The highway lights were spread so far apart that they acted more like concentrated spotlights on an otherwise pitch black night.
Luke hadn’t smoked a cigarette since Cody was nine months old, but ten years later he craved one. He passed a sign a few minutes before that said a rest stop was ahead. He considered stopping for a pack, but he quickly remembered the promise he made to nine-month-old Cody.
He glanced over at the passenger seat. The boy slept soundly - as if he hadn’t impaled two people just a few short hours earlier.
Luke’s eyes returned to the road and he tried to think of something else. But it was no use, and he could fight it no longer. He was afraid, terrified. The fear was primal. The kind of fear he had when he was a kid and not since. The kind that felt undeserving and inevitable all the same.
Vampires are real. I ran over one with my truck and crashed into another. Cody killed two more. And now we are on the run in a stolen car. The cops no doubt found the truck. They gotta be looking for us. And vampires are real! Are they following us now? Do they know about Philadelphia?
These thoughts raced in Luke’s mind, but they were only distractions from Luke’s true fear. What really terrified him was the thought of losing Cody. Did he really lose his son who loved baseball and ice cream and mini golf? The boy sleeping beside him looked like Cody, but called himself Timmault.
Cody was Luke’s whole world. He was the only thing that mattered. And now, what? Luke was just a footnote in a 500-year long vampire war?
How many fathers had Cody left and forgotten in the past? How many lives did he disappear from and never think about again? What would happen when they got to Philly?
Screw it, Luke thought. He turned onto the offramp and parked the car in a spot just in front of the rest stop. A large window peered inside to the store and lobby within. Inside, a man sat back in his chair behind the desk of a convenience store. A marquee overhead advertised cigarettes, vapes, candy, ice cream, and soda.
Luke reached for the door handle but stopped himself. What am I doing, he thought. I made a promise. Maybe Cody would forget him once they got to Philly. Maybe, he would never see him again. But Cody was still his son. A promise was a promise.
Cody gasped in the passenger seat and sat up so fast it startled Luke. He looked around to get his bearings, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. He looked at Luke with sleepy, confusion, and then out the window. His eyes fixed on the convenience store and his confusion was replaced with delight.
“Alright,” Cody said, pointing inside with a smile. “You still owe me a birthday ice cream.”
To Be Continued . . .
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