Chapter Two: Up in Flames

The family of three ran down the hidden corridors of the escape tunnels. The small passageways were quickly filling with smoke and rising in temperature. Little Sophia coughed and gasped through the thick smut filling her lungs. Patricia pulled the child's collar up over her nose and told her to breathe as slowly as she could. Afterwards, her black eyes lifted to burrow holes into the back of her husband's head. He had long discarded his shirt, due to the incredible heat, and she could now plainly see the shifting muscles beneath his pale flesh. The inner beast was stirring, having been awakened by his rage. The hands that swung at his sides were pulsing, twisting, the fingers and nails elongating. His legs twisted grotesquely and he stumbled briefly. "What are we going to do, Sampson? It's light out and we're almost at the end of the passage." She asked, hoping that he had the answers, as he so often did. He was the wisest man she'd ever known.

Yet, this time he was at a loss. He turned his head to look back at her, his lips pulled away from a mouth full of gnashing teeth in an agonized grimace. "I don't know." He rasped. "I'll think of something." They pressed onwards in silence, both secretly knowing that this night would not end well for them. Their family had been reduced from six to three in less than an hour's time. It may still grow smaller.

Finally, they reached the door that separated them from their freedom. Sampson reached the door first and went to throw it open. He reeled away with a hiss of pain.

"Sampson!" Patricia screamed, horrified by the burns that now blotched the pale skin of his palms.

"There's flames on the other side of the door. We'll have to make a run for it. Rein in the transformation. Our human skin can withstand the sun better than our real ones." Sampson hissed, pain still in his voice. A too long tongue slipped from his lips and racked across his injured hands, leaving healed flesh behind it.

Both mother and father growled with effort as they concentrated on the difficult task at hand, to take back their emotions enough that the demonic features of their real faces and bodies disappeared. Their sharp teeth were blunted, their nails retreated, and the whites of their eyes returned. They were beautiful humans once more. No one would know the difference. The only tell tale sign of their monstrous nature was the cold black of their eyes, so dark that the pupil and iris blended together and no light reflected there.

"This is going to be painful." Sampson warned. "When I open the door, we must make a break for the trees. Their shade will provide a little protection from the sun, at least until we can reach a car or some other building."

"What about the Eris' barn?" Patricia suggested, looking back down the corridor for the hundredth time, fearful of pursuers.

"Good idea. The Extinguishers will look for us there, eventually. But maybe we could hide there momentarily, just long enough to rest and recover. We won't survive a long trek in the daylight." Said Sampson, running his hand irritably through his thick brown hair.

"I'm ready if you are." Said Patricia with a weak smile, a crease forming between her eyebrows as she struggled to keep up the human disguise. She quickly rolled up onto her tiptoes and gave Sampson a peck on his lips. Agony rolled through her body at the thought that this brief kiss could be the very last they ever shared.

He and Patricia grouped together, she shielding Sophia with her body and he shielding Patricia with his own. With a final roar, they burst out of the protection of the dark tunnel and ran through flames out into the deadly morning sunshine.

Patricia and Sampson screamed at the terrible pain. Their skin burned and bubbled like boiling tar. There was nothing more painful than sunlight to the Nosferatu, but at least with their human skins, they'd have a chance. Without it, they would have self-combusted as soon as they exited the comforting darkness of their once beautiful home. Sophia cried and let out a shrill scream. There was so much pain. Her little body couldn't take it. Her mother clutched her tighter against her chest to muffle the sound.

"S-Sampson." Patricia gasped with ragged breaths. She buried her face into his chest, seeking some sort of relief from the terror and pain.

"A little…just a little further." He gasped in return, his eyes narrowed and teeth clenched against the onslaught on his senses. The sunlight scorched his body, his human flesh falling away in patches. His eyes were nearly completely blind in the light. Everything looked blurry, as if he were miles underwater. He could just make out the green blur of the tree line. How much further beyond that was the Eris' barn? Damn. There was no way they'd make it.

Once they reached the shade of the trees, the pain eased off enough that they could move a little faster and think. Patricia was in bad shape. Her Nosferatu features were showing again, even more so that his own. Her right arm had completely transformed and her face was twisted. Sharp teeth peaked from her lips. A steady flow of tears fell from her pitch black eyes, like waterfalls from the mouths of caves. She was trembling as her muscles shifted, transforming more of her body. Her other arm elongated and her fingers stretched to their full length, ending in needle-like nails. Sampson took Sophia from her so that Patricia could concentrate on fixing the disguise. Sophia was crying, shuttering as her chubby face twisted and shifted. Her nose shrunk, her teeth became needle sharp. She clutched at his body with long claws.

"Let's keep moving." Sampson ordered, turning to move onward through the trees. "Don't look back." He ran several feet before realizing that his were the only footsteps he could hear. He stopped and looked back. Patricia stood at the edge of the tree line, staring back at their burning house. "Patricia!" He called out to her, dread filling his gut.

Patricia stared at the fire, it's flames writhing within her dark eyes. Her flesh boiled and peeled away, showing patches of her real bone white skin. "Fifty years of running…and I'm still not far enough away." She rasped with a sob. "The demons always find us." Her legs shook violently and gave out beneath her. She let out a screech of remorse and sorrow. She cried into her clawed hands.

"Patricia!" Sampson called out again, hearing her spewing nonsense in the old tongue as she cried and wailed. "We need to go now, before they-" His words were cut off at the sound of a stake whizzing through the air. It found it's mark in Patricia's chest and she fell limp on the ground.

Sampson stuck his hand into his mouth and bit down to keep from screaming, as he ducked down in the forest underbrush. He held his daughter tightly, forcing her face down into his chest so she wouldn't see what was coming.

He watched a man in camouflage approach Patricia's twitching body. The man stopped beside her and cocked his head in the side. In the firelight he could see the gleam of a scar that ran from the man's hairline to his chin. He was missing an eye on that side, the eyelids were shown shut. "Whoops, seems I missed your heart." The man teased in a level voice. He took a lighter from his pocket and flipped it open. "Oh well, I'd much rather kill you like this, anyway." He tossed the lighter onto Patricia's body and she went up in a gulf of flame as if she were made of lighter fluid. The air was filled with her screams of agony.

"Mama!" Sophia cried, wiggling out her father's hold. She jumped down and started to run towards her mother's burning form.

"No Sophia!" Her father stopped her, grabbing her by the waist and hoisting her back into his protective arms.

"Mama! Mama!" Sophia screamed, flailing madly.

"I'm sorry, baby, but we can't help her now." Sampson whispered, clasping a hand over his daughter's mouth and rushing deeper into the forest before his wife's murderer could catch up.

It was no use, trying to keep up the disguise, with hate, anger and despair rolling through him as it was. Sampson fully transformed and leapt through the forest, bounding from tree to tree with his spindly arms and legs. Sophia clung to his chest, her little arms wrapped tightly around his neck. She felt water splash against her cheek and lifted her head a bit to look upon her father's monstrous face. Tears were falling freely from his hollow eyes, streaming down his cheeks and over the webbing of teeth that filled his mouth. He let out a sorrowful screech, as he sank his claws once again into the trunk of a tree and leapt towards the next. Sophia could tell that her father was in pain. She was as well, but the shade of his body kept her from feeling the full effect of the sunlight pouring through the canopy above. His skin was shuttering and steam rose from every pore. She looked over her shoulder and saw that the forest was giving way to a clearing. Fear surged through her then. Once her father left the protection of the forest, he'd burst into flames without his human skin. He was so distraught, he didn't seem to notice where he was.

"Daddy!" Sophia cried, reaching up and pulling on his hair. "Stop! We're almost in the sun!"

Sampson blinked out of the wild stupor he'd been in and stopped abruptly, the claws on both his hands and feet digging into the soil. He raised up his hands and stared at them, his fingers opening and curling back towards his palms. "I-I don't know if I can conjure the disguise again." He rasped.

"You've got to." Sophia said, her brows angling over her dark eyes. "You'll die if you don't. Please, try."

Sampson closed his eyes and concentrated. He tried to put Patricia out of his mind, to push all his grief to the side, long enough to make it to the Eris' barn. But try as he may, he couldn't get the image of her body, twisting and screaming as she burned, out of his mind. He collapsed on the ground, a sobbing mess. "I-I can't. I can't. I need…" His teeth snapped together with an audible sound. "I need to kill something." Hoisting himself up, he unsteadily got to his feet again. He sniffed at the air and his eyes narrowed. An interesting scent had caught his attention. The musk of a male human, carefully masked by the hormones of a female deer. He sat Sophia down in the grass. "Stay here." He ordered, before dashing off, disappearing into the misty green.

Sophia curled up under a bush, her whole body aching. The forest was silent, beyond the sound of claws scraping across bark. The birds had stopped chirping. The cows and horses in the fields beyond the forest no longer spoke to each other. Even the leaves stopped their rustling. Suddenly, a human's scream echoed through the trees. Sophia curled into an even tighter boll.

A few moments later, she peeked out from beneath the bush, having heard dragging sounds. She saw her father, his human skin now fully restored. Behind him, he dragged the body of a deer hunter. He wore the same camouflage as the Extinguishers, but with an orange vest and paint on his face. His windpipe protruded from a gaping wound on his throat, his head nearly severed from his body. Sampson brought the man's body to rest in front of the bush. "Sophia. Come on out." Said Sampson. He waited patiently as she crawled out from under the bush. "Feed. It'll make you hurt a little less and restore your human skin." He looked back towards the clearing ahead. His eyes squinted against the bright sunshine pouring towards them. "The Eris' property should be in that clearing. As soon as you're finished, we'll make a run for the barn. Drink as much as you can. The trip's going to take much more out of you, now that your mother isn't here to help me shield you from the sun."

He turned away from her as she fed and sat down with his back against the trunk of a tree. He pulled his knees up to his chest and clasped his head in his hands. He was tired and broken. The emotional pain was taking more out of him than the physical. Patricia and Sampson had been together for nearly thirty years. They'd always been smart about every move they made. They never stayed in one place for very long and they only killed humans that wouldn't be missed. When Patricia became pregnant, they decided to try and settle down in one place for a while, just until the baby got a little older. They got too complacent. They let down their guard…and now…Patricia was dead. The woman he'd chosen to bind his soul with forever…was gone.