Chapter 02: Sam

"I thought I lost you somewhere

But you were never really ever there at all

And I want to get free, talk to me

I can feel you falling

Wanted to be all you need

Somehow here is gone…"

- from "Here Is Gone" by The Goo Goo Dolls

Mark felt as if he'd only just closed his eyes, when he was suddenly being shaken to consciousness by Ben. Really, he'd been asleep only two or three hours, four tops, but nonetheless... Ben wanted to do some scouting early, and he knew Mark would want to go with him. After all, Ben didn't know how little sleep Mark had gotten, otherwise he would have let the boy rest...
Mark dressed quickly, pulling his beanie down over the tops of his ears, and then left with Ben, stepping out into the cold, breezy morning.
They walked around in circles for a few hours, finding only three of the churches on their long list, before noon was upon them. In none of the buildings, great as if they'd been carved from the earth, did they find hide nor hair of the surviving priest. At twelve, they turned around and walked briskly back to the shelter
Every afternoon the shelter offered lunch to its inhabitants, which consisted every day of a sandwich and glass of milk. It wasn't fancy, but it was better then eating out of dumpsters like they would have been doing otherwise.
They made in just in time, and sat down on the koyts to eat and drink in silence. The bread was stale, and the lunch meat too salty, but Mark wolfed it down nonetheless... it was all he would have to eat for the day, as they had not a cent between them.
When the meal was finished for both or them, they sat upon their beds until the warmth spread back through their bodies, and spoke softly. Ben knew little about Mark, and Mark knew a fair share about Ben's childhood due to local lore, but didn't know much of the life he led know, the life he'd led in New York before he'd returned to the Lot. Times like these, when it became too terrible to bare the constant thought of the demons they stalked and speak it out loud, too boot, that they chose to get to know each other... after all, they both believed they'd be living in New York together soon, like father and son almost... might as well be strangers no longer.
A few hours had gone by like this, before Ben stood up. He voiced that they'd best head out now, if they intended to scout again before nightfall. Mark agreed, and got up as well, following the older man out... but something stopped him dead in his tracks.
It only took Ben a moment to notice the lack of sound of the footsteps that were supposed to follow his own. He looked over his shoulder, and saw Mark frozen in place. The look upon his face was that of disbelief, but not of horror or grief. It was in the too good to be true sense. Ben followed his gaze, to a young girl.
She stood not half way a crossed the room from them, beside what seemed to be her own koyt. Her eyes had locked with Mark's and she, too, seemed in the same freeze.
She was about the same age as Mark, thin and slender, with small lumps for breasts and still rather narrow hips. Her hair was sunshine blonde and nipple-length, and her eyes were a startling green. A tiny gold captive graced the corner of her lower lip.
A smile broke out on the girl's face, and she ran a crossed the room, falling onto her tippy-toes and throwing her arms around Mark's neck. Mark wrapped his arms around her, too, and laughed, "Sam!"
Ben recognized that name... Mark had spoken much of it, when going over the tale of his short life. To Mark, it had meant friendship, and comfort, and ally. To Mark, that name had meant everything, when to other's; it would have seemed nothing at all...
Samantha Ann Hennessy; Mark's childhood best friend.
Ben smiled, recovering from the shock of the stranger, including that the identity of the name's was that of a female, and stood silently watching from the side lines.
"What are you doing here?" Mark asked when she finally pulled away. "I thought you were up north in Gatlin or whatever...
"I was, I, um... I ran away," Mark could tell that she was lying, but he was too excited to beat the truth out of her now. "And what are you doing here? Joyce would never leave the Lot!"
Mark frowned. Joyce was the name of his mother. "She's dead..."
"Dead? How?"
"I don't wanna talk about it," Mark looked away, and they were quiet for a moment, before, at length, Mark pulled Ben into this. "This is Ben... you remember the stories about Ben Mears? Yeah, this is him... he's my guardian now."
"Nice to meet you," Sam shook his hand, and laughed. "How did that happen, anyway?"
"It's a long story," Ben said, smirking.
"Yeah?" Sam offered him a smile in return. "Well, maybe, one day, you'll write it down in one of those books of yours, ah?"
Ben, too, diverted his eyes. "Yeah... maybe..."
Sam turned away, and began chatting with Mark again. She'd never know how right she was, never know about the secret notebook and pen that was all Ben took with him, where he wrote down every little thing of his time back in the Lot, that he pondered turning in to his publishing agency when he returned to New York. He didn't care if no one would ever believe him; he knew what he'd been through...
After a moment, Ben scrapped the idea of scouting again that night, so that he could get to know Sam, and so that Sam and Mark could get to know each other again, as they slowly walked back to sit amongst Ben and Mark's koyts.
It would be a happy night, for once...

Over the next few days, Mark went on fewer of the scouts then he would have otherwise.
He couldn't explain to Sam that he was hunting down an escapee from a vampire slaughter town, and he didn't want to lie to her... although, he would if he had to. He still felt that he owed her the truth, but had lost too much because of Barlow's kind... he didn't want to lose her, too; not to an insanity he knew was real.
To reduce explanations, he left with Ben before she woke up, or during times she herself wasn't at the shelter, or even once or twice after she'd gone to sleep. When he returned, and she'd ask him where he'd gone, he'd simply answer; "... with Ben."
Once, he'd almost been caught. He'd thought Sam had been out somewhere, where ever she went when she wasn't around, but as he'd gone out the front door he'd found her leaning against the side of the building with a cigarette in hand.
He'd been able to turn the situation around into him yelling at her for smoking, while Ben snuck off to do what they'd meant to do, leaving Mark behind. Luckily for him, it worked...
Some time went by like this -- days, weeks, months; all Mark knew of was the infinite snow -- it didn't matter, they would never stop looking... when, finally; they found what they were looking for.

It was early evening, when Mark and Ben had left the shelter. Sam had gone off with an older guy who drove a car and had given her some sort of bottle that had seemed to make her happy; Mark had seen them from down the block. He'd sighed, remembering that, of the two of them, Sam was always the trouble-maker that seemed to enjoy getting herself in trouble, too...
The soup kitchen hadn't even been their destination that day... they'd passed it on their way to a Catholic church that was supposed to have had some sort of visual later that night.
Ben had stopped dead in his tracks, stopping Mark, too. He'd told Mark to hide in the alley beside the soup kitchen, and proceeded once he'd done so. Mark, peering over the edge, had matched Ben go up to the glass and peer through it... without a word to his ally, he'd gone inside.
Mark had only waited a moment, before he leaned over more and peered through the glass. He saw Ben waiting in some sort of line, and arched his brow. A farther inspection of the room had brought Mark to the real reason been had gone inside...
Father Callahan, alive and well; still doing his churchly duties.
Mark gasped and peered in further. He watched Ben go in deeper, until he reached the priest. Father Callahan had given him a tray, and said something to him, but after only a brief moment of silent, Ben threw the food back at the father, and attacked him.
Mark watched the inhabitants gasped, watched the father run off, watched Ben follow him up a flight a stairs, and disappear out of Mark's sight.
He backed up, looking up to the above windows. Where was Ben? Where was Father Callahan? What was going on? His thoughts were racing. Finally, he saw the father looking out the window... looking at him! Mark's mouth fell open, and he took a step back, but only a moment later, he saw Ben again.
He watched, as best he could, the fight take place... he heard the sound first, before he saw the glass explode out in a shower of tiny shards. He jumped out of the way and scrambled back into the alley, jerking around and leaning against the wall, he watched the drop, a blob of dark color crashing into the earth.
The police cars had already driven up, but Mark hadn't noticed them until the blob smashed into them. The body rolled off the hood of the car, onto the sidewalk, and that's when Mark saw that it was Ben...
The world seemed to stop from the moment Mark laid eyes on the twisted body of his friend and only ally. Suddenly, every word the writer had ever said came back to him in a flash, and then the world started up again, in slow motion.
The paramedics stepped out of their vehicles, a pair of two running over to either body. Mark felt his eyes fill with tears, but he would never allow them to leave his eyes, not now, not after all he'd already been through.
He couldn't quite understand at all when the pair of paramedics at Ben's side shouted that he wasn't alive. He couldn't really compute anything at all, until the paramedics at Father Callahan's said called out that he was alive, too. That's when the world caught back up to speed, and Mark understood... that it wasn't over yet.

Mark knew he couldn't waste any time. As soon as the police and paramedics cleared out, he bolted out of the alley and back to the shelter, demanding the address from the first worker he saw without even a word of greetings.
He didn't check if Sam was there, didn't much care. He was lucky she wasn't back yet, to say the least. The worker, a female with a bad perm, scribbled down the directions on a scrap of paper, and handed it to him. The second it was in his fingers, he turned and ran away, without as much as a word of thanks.
He was at the hospital in less than a half an hour, and sneak in through a side door on a doctor's coat tail after that doctor had opened it by swiping a card. He snuck very carefully through halls he was not supposed to be in, and finally hid in a linen closet with the door opened just a crack for him to hear and see through.
He was lucky to have chosen that closet. It was positioned on a wall that looked out at a plus-mark where halls met. Doctors ran into each other there often, and spoke of their patients.
The first news he heard was of Ben. Two female nurses ran into each other, and one began to talk of a man who had attacked a priest and taken a two story drops... that had to be Ben. Mark listened carefully as the nurse recounted his condition, and his heart fell...
A ruptured organ; it was only a matter of time, unless they could get him into surgery before morning, which was little short of impossible.
Mark swallowed his grief, and stayed his course. He didn't know how long he'd waited in that linen closet... it felt like eternity, with his nerves on end like they were, but it was probably only a few hours. He'd heard about Father Callahan, and his condition, and well as more on Ben, and what room Ben was in, but he was waiting to hear where the father was being held... and, finally, it slipped.
A male doctors told a female nurse with big, frizzy, curly hair to check on patient 1102 (which Mark had heard before, and knew was the father) in room 416. His heart leapt up in his chest and he stood up straight, finally discovering the door.
Even more anxious then before, he waited, his eyes unblinking on the hall, until the female nurse that had gone to the father's room passed by again. When she was out of sight, and the coast was clear, Mark knew it was the time to fly.
He crept out of the closet, shutting the door silently behind him, and slipped down the hall. Slowly on cautiously, his eyes switching back and forth like a pendulum, he went on; he couldn't afford to get caught now.
It wasn't a long walk, and not too hard to find; he only went down the wrong one once. Within moments, he was in front of the door that an unknown amount of time had led him to. Again, he slipped in, shutting the door silently behind him.
He turned, and stopped for a moment. There was Father Callahan, hooked up to a bed by various machines and things, unconscious thanks to the severe concussion Ben had left him with... this was the man who had baptized Mark, and married his parents, and fought beside him against the vampires... now as black as any one of them, a sniveling half breed whose entire existence revolved around being a slave to the undead.
... This was the best thing to do, even for Father Callahan; he wouldn't want to be like that.
Mark crept up to his bed side, hesitantly, and examined the machines and hook-ups. He knew well enough that a pad stuck to the priest's chest monitored his heart-beat, and if it was to not pick it up anymore, it would alert the staff... he knew he had to prevent this.
Thinking fast, he located the patched and took a split second to lift it from the father's chest and stick it to his wrist. He clenched his jaw and looked at the machine. His muscle's eased as he found it still beeping steadily. Slowly, he crept around the bed, and attached the pad to the chest of the man in the bed opposite the father's, next to the man's own chest pad, so that it would pick up a heart beat for both of them, then he crept back to the bedside. He lifted a pillow from under the priest's head, and held it in both of his hands.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and brought the pillow over Father Callahan's face.
Even though he was unconscious, his natural responses made the priest struggle, but Mark held strong, until some time after he lay very still, unmoving, without his chest rising or falling at all.
Mark finally released the pillow, but had not the heart to remove it from Father Callahan's face. He took a step back, but still nothing happened... a steady beep was all that creased Mark's thoughts, but it was not the father's.
He was dead. It was over.

He left the priest after that, eager to tell Ben that he could relax now, that they were free of the vampire's curse. The world was free; because of them... no trace of Barlow remained.
He'd entered his friend's room, and his excitement had been humbled by it. He'd crept to the bedside, and told Ben just what he needed to know, laying Ralphie's hat on his chest, to which been replied, "Hunting season's over..."
Mark had smiled, for the first time at ease since Danny Glick had come to his window and awared him that all was not right in the world at all.
Ben had smiled, too, and laid his head to the side... that's when the machine rang out, loud and clear, and sharp enough to break glass. Mark had been frozen in place, too shocked to comprehend, before it dawned on him, and he knew he had to get out of here. He turned on his heels, and made a run for it, whinding down the halls and back to the side door through which he'd come in.
Damn it! He'd forgotten the door opened only by slide card! He should have taken one, if he had remembered, or found another escape... he kicked the door in desperation, panic; his head filled with what might happen to him now if he couldn't flee... to make it worse, he heard a voice behind him. Jerking around, he was faced with an African American nurse, towering over him in silent dismay.
He stumbled back into the door, trying with all his might not to cower before the older, stronger man. He was cornered! Matt Burke's words were ringing in his ears; "you might survive only to be tried for murder..."
"I don't believe you," the nurse told him. "I can't..."
But nonetheless, he swiped the card. The door gave way. Mark was frozen in disbelief for a moment, but his mind was screaming at him to just go... finally, his legs became animated again, and he flipped around and dashed off into the night, with no known destination at all... he was just running, free at last, but too scared and fucked up to understand any of it...

Mark found himself beneath a tree in a park-like area, too tired to go on. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath, and decided now would be a good time to plot his course of action...
Ben was dead, he couldn't go back to New York with him now, and he couldn't trust him to guide him anymore. He was perpetually alone in the world now... god, how he hated to be alone! He'd never let anyone see an ounce of it, but he was scared; hell, he was terrified! He felt small and confused amidst all this chaos and he didn't believe he could do it alone...
Sam! His childhood partner in crime! But how could he get to her? He couldn't go back to the shelter... if that black nurse told anyone about him; they'd know he killed the priest. They'd dig up dirt about him, and that would be the first place they would look. He had to get out of Detroit, and the sooner, the better...
But, surely, it would take time for them to track him back to the shelter... and it would only take him a minute to get Sam and get out. God, it was worth a try! Either way he would end up alone, if he didn't try... and, Lord knows, he wasn't one to give up.
When he caught his breath again, and the aching in his sides and knees subsided a little, he got back to his feet, and began a jog back towards the shelter. He'd be in and out like that, before anyone would know he was there... he'd just get Sam and get out, it was that simple...
... Wasn't it?

Next chapter; Mark tells Sam the truth... how will she react? Read and find out!