Chapter 3
Lynn and Rita woke up together at the crack of dawn. They showered (individually, of course), dressed, and ate a hurried breakfast of frozen waffles before bidding Albert farewell. Sometime during the night, Albert had applied a heavy tint to the windows and windshield of Lynn's car to keep out the worst of the sunlight, but Rita still slathered her face with sunscreen, just to be safe.
They drove for hours at a time, only stopping to eat, use the bathroom, refuel, and sleep. The whole journey took them three days and nights, mostly due to Lynn struggling to find a detour around several inconvenient instances of road construction. They arrived in Royal Woods in midmorning on the fourth day, and Lynn had to stop and ask for directions to the address of the safe house from a sleazy gas station/convenience store owner who called himself "Flip" (probably not his real name). Lynn was about to use the last of their money to pay the charge Flip demanded for the information, but Rita used her telekinetic vampire powers to cause the hose on a deteriorating gas pump to burst, allowing Lynn to drive away while Flip was distracted by the spill.
Yes, Rita had full knowledge of the supernatural powers possessed by her species, Homo vampyrus, despite having been raised by a human. She could shapeshift into many different animals, including a rat, a snake, a wolf, and a bat. She was as strong as a hundred grown men and could run with the speed of a falling star. She also had telepathic powers, including telekinesis and something resembling hypnosis. By invading the minds of lesser beings, most notably the creatures of the night, she could see through their eyes and hear through their ears.
Back to the situation at hand, they were able to find the two-story house without any more problems. It was more than a little run-down, the siding painted eggshell-white but looking closer to light brown due to the dust that clung to the innumerable cobwebs. The front window was cracked in several places, and the red paint on the door was faded and peeling. Rita stood under the awning with her special sun parasol while Lynn inserted the key Albert gave them into the lock. He had to spend several seconds twisting it and jiggling it until the lock opened with a loud click that sounded more like the cocking of a shotgun.
The inside of the house was just as decrepit as the outside. The paint was chipped, the drywall was crumbling away, and the air was rank with the smell of mold. There were a few pieces of mildewed furniture scattered around on a threadbare carpet of indeterminate color. The tiles of the kitchen floor were dusty and tacky, with Lynn and Rita's shoes making a popping sound when they lifted their feet. Lynn tried to see what the upstairs looked like, and would have fallen straight to the basement if Rita hadn't grabbed his collar right as the step he was standing on gave way and the handrail fell apart at the slightest touch.
"Whoa! Thanks, Rita!" Lynn said and breathed a sigh of relief. "Boy, have we got some work to do! It's gonna take a lot of effort to make this place livable!"
"You said it! Good thing we have my vampire super-speed!" They both flinched when they heard rapid knocking at the door. The sun was still up, so Lynn signaled for Rita to stay well away from the doorway before opening the door. On the porch stood an African-American woman in a blue business suit with a broad smile on her face.
"Howdy, folks!" she cheerily greeted. "Are you the new homeowners?" Lynn and Rita looked at each other and nodded. "Great! You won't believe how long I've been waiting for someone to move into this old scrap heap! I'm Erin Davis, the mayor of Royal Woods," she introduced herself, stepping over the threshold to shake the couple's hands.
"Uh, nice to meet you. I'm Lynn, and this is my girlfriend Rita," Lynn introduced them, still dumbfounded at the presence of the mayor.
"I'm just curious, did you folks have some kind of strategy for making this place livable?" asked Mayor Davis.
"No, not really," Rita replied. "To be perfectly honest, we're pretty much broke, so we can't afford to hire professionals. I don't think we can even afford furniture."
"I can help with that," said the mayor with a smile. "You see, this is one of the oldest houses in town, so I've been looking for an excuse to restore it. The problem was, it got sold fifteen years ago, so I couldn't do anything without the owner's permission," she explained. "I have over fifty thousand dollars set aside to restore this house and put new furniture in it. If I can have your consent, you won't have to contribute a single penny. No conditions, no strings attached, and no paperwork on your part. What do you say?"
Lynn and Rita looked at each other, then accepted the extremely generous offer on the spot. Mayor Davis was even kind enough to set them up with a hotel room to stay in while the restoration crew was working on the house. While they stayed in the hotel, Lynn and Rita used the computers at the local public library to look for work.
Rita applied at the library itself and was hired almost immediately. The library closed well after sundown, and the building had very few windows, so it was perfect for her.
It took a little longer for Lynn to find a job, mostly because it was hard to determine what he was qualified for. It didn't help that a lot of places in town required employees to have at least an associate's degree (Lynn and Rita had run away before even their freshman year of college was over). After two weeks of fruitless searching, he finally found a job as a cook in a nearby 24-hour diner. After the third week, the mayor contacted them and let them know that the house could once more be lived in.
...
After opening a joint bank account, Lynn and Rita started pooling their resources so that they could live more comfortably and even go on the occasional date. Their first few dates in their new town took place in the diner where Lynn worked, but Lynn soon earned a pay raise, allowing him to take Rita to fancier restaurants. It was at one of those restaurants that, a year after he and Rita moved in, Lynn presented his girlfriend with a cheap titanium wedding band and popped the question.
By that time, Albert had joined them in Royal Woods for a little over two months. He explained upon his arrival that he had taken the time to tie up some loose ends, then faked his own death in a fiery car crash to cover his tracks. He'd dyed his hair, which originally had been black, snow-white and changed his last name to Willard. He was so happy when he learned that Lynn and his daughter were tying the knot that he went out and bought a bottle of champaign to celebrate.
They only planned on a private wedding with very few guests, since they were still strapped for cash. They'd managed to make a handful of friends since moving to Royal Woods: there was the mayor, along with her husband and children; the Hunnicutt family, a clan of hard-working farmers who were frequent customers at Lynn's diner; and the Santiagos, a nice Hispanic couple who Rita met at the library and quickly befriended.
Mayor Davis was outraged at how cheap the wedding was going to be and gladly contributed funds to make the celebration truly special. She bought the couple proper gold wedding bands (Rita having claimed to be allergic to silver), took Rita dress shopping, and paid for a cake and catering. Rita was secretly glad that it was the middle of winter, as a sleeveless and/or backless wedding dress would have exposed her Vampire Sigil.
Having ceased all contact with the friends in his old hometown (none of whom he was particularly close to, anyway), Lynn asked Arturo Santiago to be his Best Man. Likewise, Rita asked Arturo's wife, Maria, to be her Maid of Honor.
The guests arrived, vows and rings were exchanged, and merrymaking was had.
A few weeks after their wedding night, the newlyweds discovered that Rita was pregnant. Rita made several hard decisions before she finally came out as a vampire to the Santiagos. Both of them were much too fond of her to turn her in, and instead congratulated her on her coming child. As a nurse, Maria promised to help Rita along with the pregnancy and delivery, only to soon find out that she was pregnant herself. Arturo himself was a doctor, and ended up delivering the babies of both his wife and their friend. Rita gave birth to a girl, who she and Lynn named Lori, while Maria gave birth to a boy, who she and Arturo named Roberto (Bobby for short). Despite being only half-human, Lori had no Sigil and no vampiric traits.
Lynn was fortunate to land a new job as the head chef of a fancy restaurant that paid much, much better, because he and Rita cranked out one kid after another as the years passed. Their children eventually numbered eleven in total, ten girls and one boy: Lori was the oldest at seventeen, then came Leni at sixteen, Luna at fifteen, Luan at fourteen, Lynn Junior (a biological girl, despite what the suffix implied) at thirteen, Lincoln (the only boy and, curiously, the only one to inherit Rita's powers) at eleven, Lucy at eight, the twins Lana and Lola at six, Lisa at four, and finally Lily at one.
Lori inherited her mother's looks, including her bright golden hair. She and Bobby grew up together and eventually developed a romantic relationship of their own. Her specialty was golf, and she wanted to be a golf coach and teach others how to be as good as her.
Leni also had blond hair, but it was a more muted, pale color. She was clumsy and far from the sharpest tool in the shed, but she was an amazing seamstress. She also possessed a warm, motherly aura that made her one of the most popular babysitters in town. She, too, lacked vampiric abilities or a Sigil.
Luna had curly brown hair like her father that she wore down her back. Her talent lay in the realm of music, particularly the violin. Like her two older sisters, she also appeared to be fully human.
Luan's straight brown hair was a few shades lighter than Luna's, and she was an up-and-coming comedian. She prided herself on corny one-liners and rib-tickling practical jokes, but her siblings and parents were rarely as amused as she was, mostly because they were on the receiving end of her relatively harmless pranks.
Lynn Junior had dark hair like Luna and her namesake, and was a sports-loving tomboy. Even at thirteen years old, she was strong enough to compete in the games of the local Scottish Highland Festival.
Lynn and Rita's only son, Lincoln, was the odd one out of the bunch. As previously stated, he was the only one out of all eleven to inherit Rita's vampiric traits. He was also the only one with natural snow-white hair, and his ears tapered to points. His Sigil was on his back, stretching across his shoulders and down the length of his spine. Through careful experimentation, it was also discovered that his human half protected him from a vampire's weaknesses; he had all of the good stuff, but none of the drawbacks.
Out of all the siblings, Lucy looked the most like a stereotypical vampire, with pasty, gray-tinged skin and black hair that covered her eyes. Alas, she too lacked a Sigil. However, that didn't stop her deep desire to become a vampire's Familiar, a servant (sometimes even a slave) who shared the eldritch magic of their master, but was far weaker than a true vampire.
Lana and Lola were so alike, yet so different at the same time. They were identical twins with their mother's golden hair, but their personalities were exact opposites. Lana was a tomboy who hated baths with a vengeance, while Lola was about as girly as you could get.
Lisa, like Lynn Junior and Luna, had dark brown hair, and she was the only one who needed glasses to see properly. Despite being only four, she was a passionate woman of science; chemistry, biology, and mechanical engineering being her preferred fields of study.
Lily was only a year old, so her talent was yet to be discovered. She was bald except for a small tuft of pale blond hair like Leni's.
The whole Loud family (for Rita had taken her husband's name) led a good life with a few bittersweet moments. However, after searching for the couple for nearly twenty years, trouble finally found them...
