Chapter 25: Welcome to the Family

It was mid Sunday afternoon when Mary Thistle awakened in her bed groggy, tired and disoriented. For the first few minutes, she did not know who or where she was. When the who and where did finally register in her mind, that newfound awareness was instantly overwhelmed by the extreme fatigue, weakness and hunger that was raging inside her. All other concerns were inconsequential. Driven by a craving for food and water, Mary rolled out of her bed and onto her bedroom floor. She then crawled to the bedroom door, used the nob to pull herself up onto her feet and stumbled out into hall.

The fatigue and cravings inside Mary motivated her every move. When she made her way into the kitchen, Mary went straight to the refrigerator, pulled out a large covered plastic bowl filled with a leftover vegetable beef stir fry dish. She immediately peeled off the lid and began feeding herself hand to mouth. Shortly after she consumed the contents of the bowl, she began experiencing abdominal pangs and started regurgitating the food she had just swallowed.

Mary was not overly surprised by her body’s rejection of the vegetables; they were disagreeable with her sense of smell and taste. When her convulsions stopped, she raced to the kitchen sink and quickly drank three glasses of water. After the water, she then turned her attention back to the refrigerator and quickly found a nearly empty package of bologna. She instinctively knew that the meat would not be rejected by her body and consumed the five slices inside the package within seconds. But that did not come close to satisfying her hunger.

Mary knew there was no more meat in the kitchen and concluded within a few seconds that she had to leave the house. The bologna had energized her a little, but not enough to give her the stamina to go shopping. She feared a trip to the grocery store might require more effort than she could sustain. The possibility of collapsing unconscious on the grocery store floor was in her thoughts. In the end, Mary came up with an acceptable alternative.

Sarah Price was a good friend who lived five houses down from her. They shared similar life experiences, and they bought lived alone. That last distinction was the reason behind much of their interaction with each other. They frequently dined together, shopped together and hung out together. They were two women in the declining years of their lives who enjoyed each other’s company and lived conveniently near to each other. Mary was sure that walking down to Sarah’s home would not be too much for her, and she was almost certain that Sarah was home.

Mary thought nothing of changing her clothes. She did not want to waste the energy it would take to wash and change. Her memory was back and sharper than it had ever been. Everything that happened with Lola the day before was now clear in her mind. Mary was also feeling the differences between the body she had before Lola’s visit and the body she had now. The belief that her youth was returning and that she was now immortal had her eager to complete the transformation. She recalled what Lola told her about how her body would burn off fat at a rapid pace during the transition period and how fatigued and hungry she would be when she awakened. That knowledge and all that she was experiencing now had Mary eager to complete her transformation into a fully functional vampire.

In her hurry to get to Sarah’s house, Mary gave little thought to Lola’s warning about going out during the day. She knew that she had a vulnerability to the sun, but she was not expecting it to be too extreme. She recalled that it was close to noon when Lola arrived at her door. With that memory in her head, Mary floundered out of her house and started for Sarah’s without regard for the sun. She was barely two houses down from her home when a wave of exhaustion hit her. Her body began to sweat profusely, and her eyes stung with pain from the light of the day. Her strained walk slowed to the pace of a decrepit senior citizen, but she continued to move forward and arrived at Sarah Price’s front door barely able to stand.

“Oh my God, what happened to you?” Sarah exclaimed with alarm. “Come in, come in.”

Mary slowly crossed the threshold of the doorway and continued toward the living room. Sarah shut the front door behind her and then hurried ahead into the living room. Sarah was taken aback by Mary’s disheveled appearance. She noted that her friend of seven years was so heavily soaked in sweat that her first thought was she fell into some wet grass.

“Sit, Mary,” Sarah encouraged while directing her toward a sofa chair.

Mary ignored the offer and immediately began steering herself toward the kitchen.

“I need something to eat,” Mary sighed.

“Yeah, okay,” Sarah agreed as she hurried ahead into the kitchen.

“I have a chicken casserole,” Sarah reported as she partially opened the refrigerator door. “Can I heat you up a plate?”

“No,” Mary sharply declined. “You have meat?” She asked while pulling the refrigerator door wide open.

Sarah was surprised by the energy Mary suddenly displayed when she grabbed the refrigerator door and threw it all the way open. As Mary leaned in toward the refrigerator, Sarah stepped back and watched as her friend searched the shelves for food. For the first time, Sarah noticed a difference in Mary’s physical appearance beyond her clothes. It was clear to her that Mary had lost weight. She was also seeing movements that were not a match for the 58-year-old Mary that she knew.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sarah asked with an astonished gaze. “What happened?”

“Do you have meat?” Mary hurriedly asked as she continued to look through the contents of the refrigerator.

“The casserole has meat in it,” Sarah returned with a questioning look.

“No,” Mary insisted. “I don’t want a casserole. I need meat.”

“Fine, I’ll cook you some bacon,” Sarah replied with a hint of exasperation.

The instant Mary heard the word bacon, her attention went down to the drawers at the bottom of the refrigerator. She quickly pulled one of the drawers out and snatched a package of bacon out of it. Without hesitating, Mary ripped open the package and began gorging on the few strips of bacon inside. Sarah watched in shock and disbelief as Mary consumed six uncooked strips of bacon in less than a minute.

“Mary,” Sarah called out with a look of dismay. “You just ate uncooked bacon.”

“Do you have anymore?” Mary eagerly asked without regard for Sarah’s shock.

Sarah scrutinized Mary’s actions and grew increasingly confused and worried as she did.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sarah asked again.

“Nothing is wrong,” Mary answered defensively. “I’ve changed, that’s all. I’m different.”

Mary had just finished speaking that reply when her sense of smell began registering the scent of Sarah’s blood seeping through her pours. Without thinking about it, Mary took a step toward Sarah.

“Different how?” Sarah questioned with her face scrunched into a look of confusion.

“I’ve become better,” Mary pondered out as she savored the smell of blood.

“What does that mean?” Sarah continued to question with a puzzled expression.

“It means that I’m becoming young again,” Mary responded dismissively as she continued to move toward Sarah.

“I don’t understand, Mary?” Sarah asked in exasperation. “You’re not making sense.”

Mary gave no thought to verbally responding to Sarah’s last question. Extreme hunger had her thoughts in a perpetual state of distraction, and the smell of Sarah’s blood had her appetite whetted to feed on her friend. Seconds later, her eyes began reflecting light and the beginnings of fangs started to protrude from between her lips.

“What’s happened to you?” A now frightened Sarah asked as she moved back against the kitchen counter.

Sarah watched with a mixture of amazement and terror in her expression as her friend continued to approach like a cat stalking a prey.

“Mary, what—what’s happening?” Sarah stuttered out in wide-eyed horror.

Driven more by hunger, Mary lunged at Sarah and quickly wrestled her to the floor. Without hesitation she bit into Sarah’s neck and tore open her carotid artery. Despite Sarah’s screams and moans Mary feverishly siphoned blood from her body. A minute later, Sarah’s moans were just whimpers. Her heartbeat began to slow, and her struggle stopped. After another minute, Sarah’s heartbeat was gone, but Mary continued to suck on the wound in her neck for a couple minutes more.

When Mary finished her feeding frenzy, she sat back on the floor and savored her meal. For nearly a minute she silently reveled in her satiated condition. It was at the end of this span when her thoughts returned to Sarah.

“Oh my God,” Mary whispered as she stared at the lifeless body of her friend.

An instant later, Mary frantically pushed herself away from Sarah as though distance would somehow turn what she had done into a dream of an event that did not happen. For several minutes she sat on the floor across from Sarah’s body and stared at her in terror. Despite all her wishes, prayers and denials, Mary could not escape the conclusion that she had killed someone. What made the killing even worse was the awareness that the someone was her friend.

Motivated by her affinity for Sarah, Mary began to realize that she might be able to duplicate what Lola did to her. After a few seconds of thought, she decided to turn Sarah. She quickly hurried over to Sarah’s body and laid it flat and straight on the floor. She then got up off the floor, grabbed a cooking knife out of a holding block and cut into her palm. She then dropped back down to the floor and began dripping her blood into Sarah’s mouth. Several seconds later, she pushed back from Sarah’s body and began the wait for the transformation.

Mary did not know if she fed her blood to Sarah correctly or in time. She only had Lola’s brief description of the process that was told to her in passing. She spent the next several minutes praying that Lola left nothing out in her telling of how Tony turned her into a vampire. When she tired of doing nothing but praying and panicking, Mary lifted Sarah off the floor and carried her out of the kitchen, up the stairs to the second level and into her bedroom. After laying Sarah on her bed, Mary settled into a chair to wait out the transformation or the proof that it was not going to happen.

Over the course of the afternoon Sarah’s home telephone rang three times. Each time it rang, Mary noted that the caller was Sarah’s son, Kenneth Price. Mary knew Kenneth personally. She met him several times and thought him to be a charming and good-looking young man. She knew him to be a dutiful son who loved his mother, and those traits made Mary worried. The last thing she wanted to happen was Kenneth checking in on his mother. Her fear came true shortly after sunset.

“Mom!” Kenneth shouted from just inside the front door. “Are you home?”

Mary was not surprised to hear Kenneth’s voice inside the house. Even though she was sitting in Sarah’s bedroom, she heard his footfalls as he walked up to the front door. She heard his key jiggling into the lock, and she heard the door open. With all that information, Mary was panicked. She weighed the option of answering Kenneth’s call against remaining silent and hoping he went away. During her deliberation on her choices, she heard Kenneth start his assent up the stairs, and she knew at that moment her options were gone.

“Hi Kenneth,” Mary cheerfully greeted as she rushed out into the hallway.

Kenneth was taken aback by the sudden appearance of Mary. Up until that moment, he was proceeding on the premise that no one was in the house and hoping that was true. He knew that if his mother was home, then the silence meant that she was in distress or worse.

“Hi—Mary?” Kenneth in part greeted and questioned.

Mary was momentarily perplexed by Kenneth’s greeting and question in one sentence. She was oblivious to the change that occurred to her appearance over the past several hours. She was not aware that the transformation in her appearance was still ongoing and had sped up since she fed on Sarah. If she had taken stock of herself, she would have seen that her body had lost more than twenty pounds and the age lines in her face were gone.

“Yes,” Mary returned in response to Kenneth’s confused greeting.

“Is that really you?” Kenneth queried as he leaned in to look closer.

“Yes, it’s me, Mary. What’s wrong?” Mary asked.

“You look different,” Kenneth replied. “Did you lose weight?”

“Ah—yes, I guess I did a little,” Mary returned with a sudden understanding of Kenneth’s confusion.

“More than a little,” Kenneth corrected. “No,” he suddenly disputed. “You can’t be Mary.”

“Yes, Kenneth, it’s me,” Mary reassured with a nod of her head.

Kenneth shook his head, and then he gave Mary’s attire a good look. He noted that her appearance was decidedly disheveled, and her clothes did not appear to fit.

“Where’s my mother,” Kenneth asked assertively.

Kenneth started to walk around Mary and was stopped by a quick sidestep from her.

“Sarah is sleeping,” Mary quickly spoke. “She’s a little under the weather,” she continued with her palms up in a wait here gesture.

Kenneth gave Mary a suspicious look, and then hurried around her and into his mother’s room.

“What is this?” Kenneth exclaimed as he hurried to his mother’s bedside. “Mom!” He called as he stood over his mother.

When Kenneth did not get a response from Sarah, he turned to look at Mary with shock and anger.

“What did you do?” Kenneth asked in a demanding tone.

Mary had no idea how she should respond and shrugged her shoulders instead. Kenneth took note of Mary’s silence before turning his attention back to his mother.

“Mom!” Kenneth called out as he shook Sarah’s arm.

After several more attempts to awaken his mother, Kenneth noticed the wound on her neck and turned her head to take a better look.

“What did you do?” Kenneth roared at Mary furiously.

Once again, Mary did not know what to say or how to respond. She threw her hands up and shook her head while appearing sorrowful. Kenneth was not moved by Mary’s pitiful display and promptly reached for the telephone by Sarah’s bed.

“No!” Mary screamed as she grabbed Kenneth by the arm and slung him to the floor.

Kenneth landed on the floor then quickly rolled up to a sitting position with expression of shock and disbelief. He paused there for a moment to study the woman who had just tossed him to the floor, and then he got up with a scowl and charged her with every intention of doing her harm. The moment he was within arm’s reach of Mary, she stuck out her right arm and pushed him away. Kenneth flew across the room, bounced off the far wall and then fell to the floor.

“What—what are you?” Kenneth huffed out in surprise and disbelief.

Just as he spoke, Mary’s eyes began to shimmer with reflected light. Excitement and fear caused her to tense up for a fight. Her breathing became labored, and her heart was beating at an accelerated pace.

“I’m getting the police,” Kenneth grumbled as he got up from the floor.

With his eyes wide from shock and disbelief, Kenneth ran for the bedroom doorway. Just as he reached the opening, Mary grabbed him by the neck, lifted him off the floor with one arm and pinned him against the door frame. She hissed and bared her newly form fangs. Kenneth was shocked by the sight of the protruding canines and began struggling against her hold on him with no success. Suddenly, Mary reached up with her other hand, grabbed Kenneth by the head and then pulled him down until his neck was in the grip of her bite. Kenneth screamed as he tried to fight off the assault. Mary quickly brought him down to the floor while she sucked out the blood flowing from the tear in his carotid artery. Before a minute had passed, Kenneth’s struggling stopped as his consciousness faded. Two minutes later, he was dead.

For a second time in one day, Mary backed away from a killing she had done and wondered what she should do. She quickly concluded that Kenneth had to be turned to minimize the wrath of his mother. After biting into her palm and feeding him her blood, Mary carried Kenneth to his old room and laid him out on the bed. When she finished doing that, Mary took the time to think about the possible consequences of what she had done. She feared that her actions were going to interfere with Tony McGuire’s plans, and she knew that he had the potential for inflicting severe punishments on anyone who inconvenienced him.

Motivated by her fear of Tony’s displeasure, Mary considered calling Lola for help, but she did not have Mary’s new cellphone number memorized and her own cellphone was back at her house. She shortly backed away from that idea. She told herself that she had time and that the call to Lola could wait until she returned home. The last thing she wanted to do at this time was leave Sarah’s side. What Mary did not know at that moment was that Lola had spent much of the day trying to call her.