BASTILLE DAY
I lay under the white sheet in the white room, only my head exposed.
I wondered if the comfort I felt under that cloth was a remembrance of being tightly bound in swaddling when my every need was met, or if the comfort was a precursor to the shroud, when all responsibilities and duties had passed. It didn't matter. I was in the present and I controlled my own destiny.
I had to. No one else could, no one else would. As I shifted, so did the cloth. I experienced a slight chill on my knee as it became exposed. Fingers extended, I tugged at the white sheet, covering the gap.
Maybe it was something genetic in us, but I railed against the concept of fate and predestination. Robert had been so affronted by the concept that he'd actively spit in its eye, battling fate and winning. I remained quiet, but my resistance was resolute.
As I stretched my shoulders, the small chill sent goosebumps down my spine. Shuffling my shoulders a bit, I covered the gap, the chill retreating, the stain spreading from my soul constrained.
The edges of the white room grew indistinct, smudged, muddled, the sheet failing. I stared at the ceiling, thinking of who I used to be and what I now was. I could go back. I could be the man who once lived in my skin. My feet inexorably heading down the dark path wasn't inevitable.
Twisting my hips, I heard a disturbing cracking sound come from my spine. When had that begun?
My left thigh to the start of my rib cage felt the chill of exposure. Darkness slipped from under the sheet and bled into the room, despoiling the purity I clung to. As I shifted to cover up again, the sheet felt shorter, narrower. I tried to lie as still as possible, not moving, not stretching, my chin poking out, everything else covered.
I looked out from the face of Alistair and saw all of the room, which was my world, and hid everything below the sheet, everything that wasn't me. It would never be me. The luminescent purity grew duller, retreating from the room's corners, coalescing on the ceiling above me.
As I concentrated, as I focused everything that I was on the whiteness directly above me, I felt the cool of the room on my heels. I used my feet and toes to pull down the sheet, and it retreated from my neck and clavicle, and again; the darkness escaped.
I couldn't do it. I couldn't hold it back. My pulse raced as the one thought echoed through my head, pounding at my mind, throwing itself at the barriers I had constructed.
It wasn't just.
It wasn't just.
Whipping off the sheet as blackness flooded the room, I shredded and rent the whiteness, revealing the poisoned rage, bloodlust, and unwavering thirst that coursed through my body.
Sitting up, I clutched the remains of the cloth and screamed until my voice grew hoarse.
"Alistair!"
There was a blinding light. Blinking my defense, I was finally able to see my sister, Janelle, standing near the light switch at the door to my bedroom.
"Alistair, it's me. I'm here. It's okay. It was another dream. You're going to be okay."
Gulping in air by the bucket loads, I stared at Janelle, and then down to my bed. Blue. Blue sheets. Not white.
It was the nightmare. The same dream that had plagued me since being abducted by the Nosferatu when they had tried to turn me into one of them.
I took a deep breath and then tried to smile at Janelle to let her know I was again under control.
See my smile. See my muscles relax. See my breathing become stable. Don't look more deeply. Don't see my flaring nostrils. Don't wonder if I can see your pulse as I look at your throat. Don't wonder if I can smell your blood as it courses through your body.
"I'm all right. Thank you, Janelle. It has passed. I'm going to get some tea. Please go back to sleep."
She moved closer, sat on the edge of the bed, and hugged me. I couldn't smell her. I couldn't see her. As I clamped down on my jaws, all my other senses drifted away. All that remained was the thudding of her heart that filled my ears.
Forcing my eyes tightly shut, I briefly hugged her in return and held her at arm's length. Again forcing the smile, I nodded to indicate I was okay, and back to being the brother she knew.
Janelle was a nurturer. That was her gift. While the rest of my siblings were born killers, she was a talented healer. There was nothing of our father in her. When he had nearly caved in my skull and rendered me an invalid, it was Janelle who had slowly, patiently brought me back. When my family found me and brought me from that Stygian warren of vampires, it was Janelle who began the reclamation project of my broken mind and spirit.
I wasn't healed. Instead, I was simply delayed. Everything that they had turned me into was still there, just lurking under the surface. I was a monster, but Janelle had at least shown me how to temper that need to kill, that thirst for domination.
Now I wore a mask to pass amongst the good people, those who still had a claim to humanity. It was an improvement. I was miles from where I had been, but I was still close enough to reach out and touch the essence of who I used to be.
Janelle reached out and placed one hand on my left temple and her other hand on my right. "You're the psychiatrist, Alistair, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out what your dreams are telling you. We need to talk about this. I'm not going to take no for an answer."
I nodded again. "All right. We will. Today. Just not now. I need that tea, and some time to get separation would help."
"Okay. I'm gonna hold you to that. Love you, Alistair."
"I love you too, sister."
She returned to her bedroom, and I made my way downstairs to the kitchen. I drank my tea and ate a pastry as I watched the sun rise over the Atlantic.
I dwelled in my memories until my brother joined me downstairs. As traumatic as my life had been recently, his was certainly not easy, and I never heard him complain. Not once. I had beaten him near to death due to a mistake that was entirely my fault, and yet he had forgiven me. We dragged him into our plan to finally deal with our father, and he lost his leg in the process. Until recently, he was unaware of our existence. We entered his life, calamity followed and yet he held none of it against us.
Anthony grabbed a box of some disgusting cereal from the top of the refrigerator, tossed it on the table, and then grabbed some milk and a bowl.
I tried not to make it obvious that I was aghast. "I don't have the most deft of hands, but I could make a passable omelette if you would be interested."
He shook his head. "I'm good."
"All right."
I left him to his bowl of barely disguised sugar with a side order of diabetes and grabbed the grapefruit from the refrigerator. As I sectioned it out, I watched Anthony looking out the back window, following his shifting gaze across the patio.
"What is the term? A penny for your thoughts?"
He smiled without turning back to me. "They're worth a heck of a lot more than a penny. I figured out what's missing around here and what we need to do about it. How many people do you think we could fit in the backyard?"
"I don't understand. Security people? A social event?"
He finally faced me and rolled his eyes. "Security? You see, that's exactly the problem. No, not security, Alistair. If we just invited people over to have a good time, how many could we fit out there? You know what? What if we just turned the entire house over to a party? We have the front yard and the backyard, and inside the house. How many people can we fit? I'm thinking, maybe two hundred. That wouldn't be crazy, yet still a good number."
"I see. And what would we be celebrating?"
"Life! We would be celebrating that we're alive. You know what we have here? We've got security, because each of us is an elite killer. We've got a chance to get to know each other, and I'm all in favor of learning about brothers and sisters I never knew I had. And? I don't know. It's a nice house. It's a nice area. I mean, it's on the water, so there's that. You know what it's missing, though? Joy. There is no fucking joy here, Alistair."
I paused for a second. "I can see where that might be an issue for you. You have a number of siblings, am I right? And cousins and friends who were like family?"
"Yeah. Are you getting it? We used to have big, boisterous Sunday dinners. We had block parties every summer. Whenever there's a birthday, or a holiday, we'd all get together. It's nothing like this. Nothing. You owe it to yourself to actually live. Do you think the others have ever seen anything like that? We cook for days, people start coming by early, maybe somebody sleeps over the night before to help prep. We have way too much food, we laugh all day long. Come on, man. You know I'm right. I'll invite some of my family from Long Island out. We could reach out to the neighbors. The guy that lets us use this house? Pete? You can invite him and his family. We'll set up a volleyball net. I'll take care of all the food. What do you think?"
I smiled, and this time it came naturally. Like me, Janelle was raised by a single mother. Yekong had been ripped from her home when she was little more than a toddler and she had served as entertainment as a gladiator for most of the rest of her life. Kallista's mothers were supportive, but cold. She didn't have any extended family that she spoke of. And Robert? The least said there, the better.
Of all of us, Anthony was the most normal, and maybe normal was exactly what we needed. When it came down to it, I couldn't find any fault in his argument. He was right. The home Pete had lent to us was wonderful. It was located where we needed to be; it was close to our allies; it was remote enough to be easily defensible; it was large enough to house all of us in comfort, and it was right on the water. But there was no joy. There were no friends who stopped by and entered after a quick knock as they called out their greetings through the house. There were no baseballs or frisbees found in the backyard from neighbors' children. It was a refuge, and that was what we desperately needed.
