Sleep Until Dusk
Chapter One: Bedtime Stories
The sun rose upon that morning like every other. It took it's position in the sky above the colonial style house and the pastures that surrounded it, like a king residing over his court. The cows and horses that resided in the fields lowed greetings to each other as they fed upon the sweet summer grass. The world was bright with sunshine, no grey clouds lurked above, threatening to ruin the perfect day, still the windows of the pretty little house on the hill were drawn tightly shut. The satin curtains were just as important to keep the sunlight out as they were to keep the secrets that the house held within.
"Have you brushed your teeth, Sophia?" Asked Patricia Haze, as she glided around her daughter's bedroom. The spirals of her golden hair bounced and swayed around her waist with every movement, the floorboards of the old house creaking under toe. She went to a book case, decorated with stuffed toys, and took Alice in Wonderland from the top shelf.
Little Sophia bounced over to her pine bed and settled down inside. "Yes, mama." She piped in her singsong voice, pulling her rainbow colored quilt up to her chin.
"Good." Said, Patricia. She smiled lovingly at her little girl and held up the thick book, covered in tattered and old bindings. "Let's read a few more chapters of Alice. We're at such a good part." Sophia bobbed her head happily and Patricia took her seat in a child sized chair by Sophia's coffin shaped bed. "Now where were we?" She began, scrolling a finger playfully along the age worn pages of the novel. "Ah! Here we are!" She continued on from where they last left off, as the beautiful mother ran her elegant fingers through her child's mahogany hair. Sophia's deep, black eyes shimmered with childish wonder as she listened to the story intently.
"'Cheshire Puss,' Alice began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. 'Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'So long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'"
A sudden crash startled the young mother into silence. Snapping the book closed, she leapt to her feet and stared towards the bedroom door. She listened carefully. She could hear male voices. Men who did not belong there. Six people lived in the house, but her husband was the only male.
"Is that daddy?" Asked Sophia, fright in her voice. She could hear a man shouting obscenities.
Patricia turned her head slightly and placed a finger against her lips. "Quiet." She whispered. The men down stairs were heavy footed. Every step made the rickety floorboards of the farm house creak loudly in protest against their weight. Patricia strained her ears to listen more carefully. She could hear her two sisters and her cousin screaming in terror. Their voices changed, becoming raspier as they transformed, taking their natural form. The other women hissed and snarled. Nails scraped against wood. One of the men screamed. Then there was the echo of a crossbow's release, followed by her sister Gloria's terrible scream of agony, her death rattle, as she fell apart.
"No! No! Not here! Not them!" Patricia cried, covering her mouth to muffle the sound of her voice.
"Mama!" Sophia whimpered, jumping from her bed and rushing to her mother's comforting embrace.
With the echoes of the crossbows and the screams of their kin ringing in their ears, the two hurried over to the book case. Patricia tilted back a ruby red novel without a title, and the bookcase shifted to the side, revealing a secret passageway that lead to various tunnels beneath the house's foundation. "This way." Patricia urged her daughter to move faster as she tugged her along behind her. "We must wake your father. Hopefully they haven't reached our bedroom yet."
"What's happening? Who are those people?" Asked Sophia innocently, tears dripping from her wide, black eyes. Her hand trembled in her mother's grasp.
"Extinguishers." Replied Patricia, breathlessly. She looked worriedly over her shoulder to make sure that they were not being followed.
"What are they?" Asked Sophia. Her parents had never discussed them before. At least never around her.
Patricia hesitated to answer at first. Sophia was so young. So innocent. Telling her the awful truth didn't seem fair. She wanted her little girl to grow up without fear, without having to look over her shoulder her whole life like she had to. However…keeping Sophia in the dark didn't seem like an option anymore. "There are some humans in this world who know of the Nosferatu's existence and they wish to snuff us out. They hunt us like we're big game…like our mounted heads will bring them glory." Hatred and pain gripped at Patricia's heart. Her true voice began to take over. The beast, mixing with the beauty. "Those savages! Not even our babies are safe from them! And they call us monsters!" She raged, her voice a rattling hiss, a tiger's warning growl.
Mother and daughter finally, reached another secret door, after walking up several stone staircases and winding through many dark passageways. Patricia pressed in a loose brick and the door opened slightly, just wide enough that she could pass through. "Stay here." She ordered and left Sophia to wait within the safety of the tunnel. She ran over to the large black coffin at the center of the room and threw back it's lid.
Within, laid stark white bones, swamped by empty clothing. "Wake up! Wake up, Sampson!" Patricia begged, rattling the bones with a firm hand on the skeleton's shoulder blade. Tears splashed against the skull's cheekbone, as she bent over him and laid a kiss on his lipless grin. "Please, you must wake up, darling. The hunters. The Extinguishers are here. They've found us again, Sampson."
She pulled away as the bones of the skeleton's rib cage flexed wider. The skull opened wide. There was a wheezing inhale of breath as air passed through the seemingly long dead corpse. Slowly, tissue, blood vessels, organs, and muscle appeared, retaking their natural place within the confines of the body and over the bones. Sampson Haze took shape before his wife and daughter's fearful eyes. His black eyes opened and he jolted upright in his morbid bed. "Patricia." He gasped, his deep voice raspy at first, then resettling into the learned smoothness. He snatched her hand and held it tightly. "What's happening?" He asked, his free hand reaching over to wipe tears from his wife's slowly contorting face. As she was growing more and more upset, her control over her mortal disguise was faltering. "Are you alright?"
"The damned Extinguishers are here, Sampson." Patricia growled, her voice near demonic. "They've killed Gloria." She spat. Sampson frowned as tears rolled over his hand and Patricia's dark irises began to ooze outward to take over the whites of her eyes.
"We had better get out of here." He said finally, jumping out of his coffin. With a firm hand around Patricia's wrist, he hurried her back towards the tunnel.
Patricia resisted, pulling back and reaching towards the opposite door. "No! We have to help the others! Jennifer and Lola may still be alive!"
"Forget them!" Sampson screamed, jerking her closer to his body. "Jennifer and Lola aren't fledglings anymore. They're grown women. They can take care of themselves."
"How can you say that?" Patricia demanded, her now completely black eyes narrowing to slits. "You're the leader of this coven. It's your job to protect us. All of us!"
Sampson's eyes narrowed back at his wife and he bore his fangs at her. "Don't be stupid!" He hissed, pointing towards Sophia, who was peeking out at them through the doorway of the secret passage. "We have a child to think about. We can't let those brutes get their hands on Sophia. We can't let them kill her before she's had the chance to live. We have to protect her."
"Daddy!" Sophia cried. "I smell smoke!"
"Shit!" Sampson spat in exasperation. "Come on, Patricia. We have to go!"
Still Patricia resisted. "But…my family…" She croaked, looking back longingly at the door.
"It's too late for them. I'm sorry, but we must leave now. Please." He begged, his angry voice becoming softer with his pleads, seeing how devastated she was. The others were all related to her. She was having a difficult time accepting that they were probably already gone. "Please, love, for Sophia."
"Mama! Daddy! The smell of smoke is getting stronger!" Sophia screamed, her whole body trembling now in her fright.
Finally, her daughter's words seemed to break through the madness that had come over Patricia and she let her sister and cousin go. She had to make sure her baby survived this. As a mother, that was her duty. Squeezing her husband's hand, they entered the passageway and closed the secret door behind them. The smell of smoke was indeed thick and the tunnel was hotter than it had been when they first entered. "The damned beasts are burning the house down around us!" Sampson snapped, all his teeth now pointed and sharp as razor blades. "Grab, Sophia. We have to make a run for it." Patricia scooped up their little girl and held her close to he heart as they ran for their lives, back through the tunnels.