Chapter 16: To Each His Own

It was a quarter past midnight, Thursday night, when Tony backed his car into the driveway of Jeremiah’s home. The lights inside and outside of the house were off. Tony was not surprised by the darkened domicile because he called ahead to have the house prepared for his arrival. The neighbors were inside, the street was quiet, and Jeremiah’s car was out of the driveway. When the car came to a stop, Tony quickly shut off the engine, got out of the car and opened the trunk. Lola was just as he had left her, wrapped in a bed spread and motionless. Tony lifted her out of the trunk and swiftly carried her to the back door of Jeremiah’s home.

“Get the trunk,” Tony commanded Jeremiah who was holding open the rear door to the house.

Tony hurried through the kitchen and up the stairs to the second level with Lola in his arms. He carried Lola to the room he had been occupying and gently laid her in the center of the bed there. Then he turned on the overhead light and began unwrapping Lola from the bedspread. He fussed with the bedding in an attempt to situate Lola in a comfortable position; then be backed away to examine his work.

“You turned her?” Jeremiah queried after entering the room.

Tony ignored the question. He knew that there was never any doubt between him and Jeremiah that his plan was to turn Lola. Her mildly emaciated form was also unmistakable evidence that his vampire blood was active inside her corpse. They both had become familiar with the progression of the vampire infection and how the virus consumed the body as fuel during the transition process. Lola’s visibly gaunt appearance was a clear indicator that she was on her way to becoming a vampire.

“How are things at the stash house?” Tony asked with a stern look.

“Okay, I suppose,” Jeremiah answered with a slight shrug.

“What do you mean, you suppose?” Tony sharply challenged.

“Somebody would have called if anything happened,” Jeremiah countered as if speaking the obvious.

“I told you to stay with the stuff,” Tony angrily hissed.

“I was busy. I had things to do,” Jeremiah returned with temper. “You’re not the only person here with a life.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Jerry?” Tony grumbled while positioning himself directly in front of Jeremiah.

“I had personal business to take care of,” Jeremiah answered with an annoyed frown. “Is that alright with you?”

“This personal business kept you away from the stash for two days?” Tony asked scornfully.

“That’s right. I had things to do,” Jeremiah returned with temper.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Jerry?” Tony growled while stepping forward with a furious glare.

Tony and Jeremiah were a foot apart and looking at each other eye to eye. Jeremiah returned Tony’s angry glare as he defiantly inched forward. Jeremiah’s eyes began to glint from the light reflecting off his retina.

“Back off, Tony,” Jeremiah growled beneath his voice. “I’m not one of your muscle-headed thugs. I have a stake in this.”

Tony was surprised by Jeremiah’s appearance of defiance. He had never known his old friend to be so angry and near to violence. Tony took a step back and examined his old friend down and up. He quickly came to the realization that Jeremiah was no longer a meek mortal. He was a strong and willful vampire.

“This is important, Jerry,” Tony warned without the anger. “We’ve got more money than we can afford to lose riding on this.”

“Then maybe you should have stayed here and kept an eye on things,” Jeremiah countered testily.

Once again, Tony was taken aback by the responses he was getting from his oldest friend.

“What are you doing, Jerry?” Tony queried with a suspicious frown.

Jeremiah considered the question for a couple seconds before relenting. He knew that Tony was going to learn the truth now that he was back, so he chose not to make an issue of it.

“Come on,” Jeremiah instructed as he turned away.

Tony followed Jeremiah out of the bedroom, down through the house to the basement staircase. The moment Jeremiah opened the door to the stairwell, Tony heard faint sounds of movement coming from the basement. When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, Tony got his first look at Jeremiah’s personal business.

“Let me go,” Patricia Boyd huffed at Jeremiah with exhaustion.

Patricia was on her knees in the center of the basement. A chain was still padlocked around her leg just above the ankle, and the other end was padlocked around the center support post that Patricia was leaning against. Her physique was gaunt nearly to the description of skeletal. Her wasted appearance was matched by her sluggish movements and dower facial expression. It was clear to Tony that she barely had the strength to sit up.

“Let me go,” Patricia hopefully panted at Tony a moment later.

Tony studied her and her situation. It was clear to him that Jeremiah had already turned her into a vampire. At the end of his examination, Tony turned his attention toward Jeremiah.

“What is this?” Tony gruffly inquired of Jeremiah with a scowl.

“She’s mine,” Jeremiah insisted with determination.

“Jerry,” Tony challenged. “We’ve got bigger things to do than chase—girls,” he finished with a stumble.

“You have Lola,” Jeremiah angrily countered. “Patricia belongs to me.”

“Look at her,” Tony growled. “She doesn’t want to be here. She could expose us.”

“I’ll control her,” Jeremiah growled back.

“No, he won’t” Patricia yelled as best she could. “Let me go,” she weakly continued.

“You dumb fuck!” Tony roared back with ferocity while grabbing Jeremiah by the top of his shirt and pushing him back a step. “You turned her! How in the hell do you expect to control her?”

As soon as Tony finished speaking, Jeremiah pushed him away with one violent heave.

“She hasn’t eaten anything,” Jeremiah roared at Tony with the beginnings of fangs showing in his teeth. “She’s as weak as a newborn puppy.”

They stood and glared at each other for several seconds. Then Tony turned his attention toward Patricia and gave her emaciated form a quick look.

“You keep her quiet and under control,” Tony insisted with point and a stern look at Jeremiah. “The instant she becomes a problem, I’m putting her down.”

Tony and Jeremiah exchanged angry stares and scowls before Tony turned and went back up the stairs.

~~~~~Line Break~~~~~

“Aah!” Lola screeched while sitting up in one sudden lurch.

It was early Friday morning when Lola Keener found her mind in a dissociative fog. Her name and location were beyond the reach of her to recall, and neither had yet become a question for her. An instinctive sensation of terror is what motivated her scream. An instant later she had her first rational thought, and it was the realization that she was in no immediate danger. Her next thought was to understand her confusion. She began looking around for clues to who and where she was. It took a little time for her mind to reconstruct the memory of her own identity and the event that occurred just before she lost consciousness.

The sound of someone moving outside the room prompted her to hurry out of the bed and to move away from the bedroom door. Lola’s substantial loss of weight added speed to her movements, but the exertion nearly drained her starved and emaciated body of all energy. Motivated by a feeling of dread, she pressed her back against the wall opposite the door. She had no place to run and hide. When the door began to open, she suddenly transformed from a terrorized human to a feral vampire. When the door was fully open, Lola’s teeth, minus fangs, were borne, and her fingernails were dug into the wall behind her.

“Lola, it’s me,” Tony gently assured from the doorway.

Tony paused just inside the room with his hands open and in front of him.

“You’re safe,” Tony continued. “You’re safe.”

Over the next several seconds, Lola’s hostility changed into a nervous calm. She relaxed her stance and looked at Tony with wary eyes.

“You’re okay, babe,” Tony continued to speak in a soothing tone.

Tony took three steps into the room and stopped.

“What happened? Where am I?” Lola quickly asked with a panicked voice.

“You’re in Queens,” Tony returned. “This is Jerry’s house.”

“What am I doing here?” Lola quickly yelled without regard for Tony’s response. “What did you do to me?” She continued while groping her neck.

“I can explain everything, babe,” Tony softly assured. “I just need you to relax.”

“You had fangs; can you explain that? You bit me—in the neck,” Lola nearly screamed at Tony. “Can you explain that?”

“Look,” Tony instructed with a point toward the vanity mirror atop the dresser.

Lola was reluctant to move. She examined Tony with suspicion.

“Go ahead,” Tony encouraged again. “Look.”

Lola carefully walked by Tony as he moved back. She stopped in front of the mirror and was shocked by what she saw.

“What happened to me? What did you do?” Lola asked in surprise.

“You’re like me now,” Tony declared with an emphasis of joy. “You’re immortal.”

Lola was aghast by her gaunt and haggard appearance. The reduction in her chronological appearance escaped Lola’s attention because of her deathly visage.

“What does that mean?” Lola asked with fear in her voice.

“Look.” Tony asserted with a forceful point toward the mirror. “You’ve lost thirty years,” he insisted.

Lola examined herself in the mirror and began to see what Tony had said. She marveled at herself for nearly a minute.

“How do you feel?” Tony cheerfully queried.

“Am I dying?” Lola asked ignoring Tony’s question.

“No, far from it,” Tony insisted with enthusiasm. “You’re getting better.”

“Then why am I so thin?” Lola asked in a voice laced with fear. “Why do I feel so tired?”

“You’re hungry,” Tony returned with a smile. “Come with me, babe,” he encouraged as he reached out his hand. “You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten.”

Lola allowed Tony to take her by the hand and lead her out of the bedroom and down into the kitchen. After seating her at the kitchen table, Tony placed a raw steak on a plate in front of her along with a glass of water.

“What? Am I supposed to eat that?” Lola asked in amazement.

Tony sat at the right angle from Lola and gave an amused smile to her complaint. At first, Lola was confused by Tony’s unwillingness to respond to her question. Several seconds later she was baffled by his silence and his devious smile. It was shortly into this bewilderment that the smell of the raw meat began to excite her appetite. She leaned forward to take in more of the scent of the meat. She soon began to inhale the aroma of the raw flesh and the faint smell of blood. Tony continued patiently waiting and shortly noticed that she had forgotten he was there. Seconds later, Lola pinched off a smidge of meat and placed it in her mouth. Then she took another smidge, and shortly after that she was holding the steak with both hands and tearing into it with large bites. After consuming three bites, Lola suddenly stopped and began using her thumb to feel her teeth. Her face displayed a mixture of shock and fear at the feel of her elongated canines.

“What—what’s happening to me?” Lola asked with a stunned expression.

“Don’t worry,” Tony quickly returned in a soft voice. “You’re growing fangs, but it’s just temporary. When you get excited or angry—when your adrenaline gets pumping, you grow fangs and claws. But they get brittle and break off when you calm down.”

Lola was amazed by what she had just heard, and then the smell of the meat drew her attention back. Three steaks and half an hour later, Lola was feeling invigorated and powerful. Sitting was not an option. She was up on her feet pacing, twirling and dancing about the kitchen while Tony explained what she had become. She was feeling powerful and vitalized to a degree that made it unlike any sensation she had ever felt before.

“So, we’re what—vampires?” Lola queried with a mixture of astonishment and exhilaration.

“Yes,” Tony asserted enthusiastically.

The word immortal intrigued Lola, and she shortly went back to her dance of self-admiration. Tony sat back in his chair and enjoyed the sight of his longtime love’s delight with her new body. Lola was looking healthier and much more attractive than she was before her meal. Her cheeks were no longer sunken. The age lines in her face were dissipating by the minute. Her double chin and the bags beneath her eyes were gone. The transformation of her body into the shapely and healthy physique she possessed in her mid-twenties was nearly complete. Tony was a few seconds into his enjoyment of Lola’s enthusiastic acceptance of her new state of being when he began hearing yells of “help” coming up from the basement.

“Who’s that?” Lola called out while coming to a sudden stop.

“Patricia,” Tony grudgingly reported.

“Patricia?” Lola challenge while looking down in the direction of the calls for help. “Patricia who?”

“Jerry’s girl,” Tony explained with a dubious shake of his head. “He’s got her chained in the basement.”

“What?” Lola asked while looking at Tony in surprise.

After Tony gave her a shrug in response, Lola hurried off for the basement staircase. Tony followed behind as she made her way down the staircase to the basement. She came to a sudden stop at the bottom of the stairs with Tony one stair step behind and up. Lola was astounded to see the young and emaciated female tethered to the basement’s center support column by a ten-foot-long chain and padlocks.

“Help me,” Patricia faintly pleaded with an outstretched hand toward Lola.

Patricia had a frail and weak appearance. She looked as if she could barely stand up.

“What are you doing?” Lola queried with an astonished look back at Tony.

“It’s not me,” Tony returned with a defensive shrug. “That’s Jerry’s doing.”

“But she looks like she’s at death’s door,” Patricia disputed with a shocked expression.

“No more than you or me, babe,” Tony replied with a smile.

Lola did not miss the inference in Tony’s words, as she quickly looked back at Patricia in complete surprise.

“She’s like us?” Lola asked with wide eyed astonishment.

“Help me,” Patricia continued to plead weakly and without regard for the conversation that Lola and Tony were having.

“Yeah,” Tony nonchalantly replied to Lola’s question. “Jerry turned her.”

“Jerry is a vampire too?” Lola asked with a look of surprise.

“Yeah, babe,” Tony answered with a sly smile. “And there’s going to be more of us. We’re going to be big,” he finished with a smug smile.

Lola paused to digest Tony’s declaration that they were going to be big. She knew from experience that Tony was entertaining ideas that he expected to make him rich and powerful, and the thought of what his plans were gave her cause to worry. Lola knew that there was no limit to Tony’s ambition. In the past, it was the limits of his resources that restrained his efforts, and even that did not save him from being arrested and imprisoned.

“Why is she chained?” Lola asked after the pause.

“She hasn’t adjusted to her new… situation,” Tony carefully expressed. “Come on, babe,” Tony encouraged with a gesture of his head. “Jerry will take care of her when he wakes up.”

Tony led Lola up the stairs and back to the bedroom. Along the way, he explained why Jerry was asleep in his room in the middle of the day and why she needed to do the same.

“So, this is going to be my new life?” Lola pondered to herself as she slowly strolled about the room and examined its contents. “Sleeping away the day—hiding from the sun,” she softly mumbled.

Lola was deep into her muse when she began to feel sexually aroused. The sensation caused her to pant lustfully. She was surprised at her unusually sudden arousal. She quickly turned and noticed Tony examining her with an amorous stare. She instantly understood that he was causing her arousal and an instant more to conclude that she did not care. In a rush, she crossed the room, threw her arms around Tony’s neck and pulled him into a feverish flurry of kissing. Tony matched her salacious frenzy. They stripped each other’s clothes off and were copulating in just minutes. After several orgasms, Tony and Lola slumped back onto opposite sides of the bed and fell into an exhausted sleep.