The Rage (Chapter 3)

It was around 10pm when Gabriel heard noises coming from Julian’s bedroom. This time there were no screams of terror, just a lot of incessant shuffling and annoyed grumblings. Gabriel got up from his chair in front of the TV and went to check on him.

He knocked on the door that was always left slightly ajar. “You okay in there, Julian?”

“Gabriel, is-is that you?” the old man replied, sounding disorientated.

“Of course, it’s me. Who else would it be?”

“What time is it?”

“I’m coming in.”

The light from the hallway took over the room, lighting up Julian sitting upright in the middle of his double bed. A smile played on Gabriel’s lips. There was just something he always found amusing about the way that huge bed seemed to swallow up the old man. He looked so small and delicate within the bulk of fluffy duck egg blue bedding.

Julian’s white hair was sticking out at all angles. He looked from Gabriel, to the closed curtains, then back to Gabriel.

“What time is it?” he repeated.

“Quarter past ten.”

Julian blinked. “Then what are you still doing here?”

“No. At night. Ten at night.”

He frowned. “That bitch shouldn’t have let me sleep. She knows I shouldn’t nap! Now I don’t know where I am!” He folded his arms over his chest. Without his dentures in, his pout was magnificent.

“Now, now, Julian, that’s no way to talk about your only grandchild.”

Julian’s jaw dropped and his eyes grew huge, looking completely mortified. His mouth open and closed several times but only flummoxed expels of air left him. Gabriel bit his lip to hide his smile.

“Not Becca!” Now the old man was shuffling about under his covers all flustered. “It’s that other bloody nurse. She’s the bloody swine! Not Becca. Never Becca! She’s an absolute angel, that one. Wouldn’t be here without her. Couldn’t do enough for me.”

“Relax, relax.” Gabriel was laughing now as he patted at the lump under the covers that was Julian’s leg. “I’m just teasing.”

Julian stopped thrashing about and gave Gabriel a sharp look before his lips curved into a smile. “You’re a bloody swine an’all.”

“But you wouldn’t have me any other way.” He switched the light on. “But since you’re awake, Becca said I’m allowed to get you up if you want. Got some freshly baked scones in the kitchen, if you’re interested?”

The old man blinked up at Gabriel like he’d just told him he could have the key to the universe. “Scones, you say?”

Gabriel nodded. “With sultanas and raisins.”

“The ones that lady of yours makes?”

Gabriel sighed, shaking his head. “Yes, Lillian made them and no, she’s not my lady. I’ve already told you this. I know you’ve got dementia but keep up.”

Julian held his palms up. “You’re the one who ruined things with my darling Becca so don’t be telling me I’m the one with the mind full of marbles.”

Gabriel rubbed his forehead, torn between wanting to talk about Becca and desperately needing to change the subject.

“And here you come into my home prancing around with another lady’s scones,” Julian tutted.

Gabriel ran his tongue over his top teeth. Man, this old man’s a character.

“Do you want the scones or not?”

He was already shuffling about the bed, smacking his lips together as his feet tried to find the edge. “Oh, yes please.”

Gabriel helped the old man to his seat by linking his arm and keeping him steady as he made slow, shuffling steps. Julian would rest almost all of his bodyweight onto Gabriel but he had to remind the old man he was just there to guide him and catch him if he stumbled, not to support him. The sooner Julian gave up on using his own leg muscles, the sooner he would become immobile. For seventy-six years of age, Julian’s body was in good shape, he just enjoyed everyone else doing things for him.

Gabriel placed one of the big scones on a plate and opened the kitchen drawer for a knife. He smiled down at the packet of bourbons stuffed into the cutlery holder. The old man had biscuits hidden everywhere. He cut the scone in half and added jam and butter before returning to the living room. He placed the plate onto the side table beside Julian’s chair and looked over to the wooden chair by his little dining table. With a frown he grabbed it and set it down beside the old man.

“Oh, you have the comfy chair, Julian, don’t mind me,” he said as he sat down.

The old man chuckled, then noticed the scone beside him. His eyes grew twice their size.

“Better get your choppers.” Gabriel left to grab the old man’s dentures from his bedroom and returned to see him with half the scone already in his hand. He passed him his teeth and he slid them in, the addition making his thin cheeks look less sunken.

As Julian ate, Gabriel turned on the TV and searched in the recordings for anything entertaining. He wasn’t going to put any of the dramas on. He didn’t want Julian talking over it and making him lose focus. Instead, he put on a film he’d seen a million times before. By the time the intro started, Julian had already eaten half the scone and was smacking his lips together.

“Be a good lad and make us a brew, would you?” he asked.

“Sure.” Gabriel got up and headed to the kitchen.

In the kitchen, Gabriel made the cup of tea just how Julian liked it. Milky with two sugars. He returned with the mug and his own thermos. Julian lifted the plate that now held nothing but a smattering of crumbs.

“And another scone.”

Gabriel set the mug down on the table, his thermos on the carpet by his chair, and grabbed the plate.

“I might be able to enjoy the film at some point.”

“Ah, what am I paying you for?”

Gabriel laughed and went to butter another scone.

Thankfully, Julian was so greedy when it came to freshly baked goods that he hadn’t even seemed to notice that Gabriel wasn’t participating in the night-time snacking. The two of them sat in silence as they watched TV, Gabriel making sure to drink from his thermos only when he started becoming acutely aware of the old man’s pulse as to not alert him to the strange smell.

“We never should have told them about that swimming pool,” Julian tutted. “Bunch of lowlifes, they were. That was our thing. They trusted us.”

Gabriel could see the old man’s forehead wrinkle with contempt and had to suppress a smile.

On the TV, the retirement home residents were jumping around and splashing in the pool. “Disgraceful behaviour,” said Gabriel.

Julian nodded, his wispy white eyebrows at his hairline. “They broke one, you know? One of those things? I told ‘em. I did. I told ‘em to be careful. Bunch of thugs.”

Gabriel held in his laugh as the old man told him that he was, indeed, in the film Cocoon.

A mind full of marbles.

.

.

Losing interest in the film, Gabriel grabbed the newspaper from the table and read it with ease in the dim lamplight. His insides grew cold at the image at the bottom of the front page and quickly turned to the page with the story.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Shitshitshitshit.

Moonlight had been raided. A vampire bar… had been raided. Vampires had undoubtedly been taken. There was no possible way that could end well.

Gabriel felt sick. He was even more thankful now that he hadn’t eat a scone out of politeness. He would have most definitely painted Julian’s gaudy flowery carpet with it.

The film was nearly over. Gabriel cleared his throat.

“Julian, what do you think happened to the aliens they left behind? Do you think they were found?”

Julian sighed. “I’m not sure.”

“But what do you think would have happened to them, if humans – if we – if we found them?”

The old man looked solemn as he watched the boat sail away. “Oh, nothing good.”

Gabriel gulped. “Nothing good?”

He shook his head and sighed, “They shouldn’t have trusted us.”

.

.

After the film ended, Gabriel helped Julian back to bed and he fell asleep almost instantly, leaving Gabriel sat staring at the blank TV screen, his leg doing that twitchy thing it did when he was restless. He had sat in Julian’s chair scrolling through social media, the knot in his stomach tightening more and more as he read. People were saying outright that the people in the basement were vampires. Sure, there were comments telling these people to stop being delusional. But there were just enough ‘delusional’ people to make noise. And when humans shouted about something loud and passionate enough, they were heard.

When Becca came over in the morning, looking well rested and smelling like vanilla, Gabriel had recounted the events of the night and had left promptly. Becca had seemed confused by the quick exit and Gabriel fought back his annoyance at his own behaviour, especially after she had stroked his arm which may or may not have been her extending an olive branch. But his mind was preoccupied. He had sat there in that chair the remainder of the night, panic sitting like a lead ball in the centre of his chest. He’d wanted to scream, to break something, to tear something apart. He had messaged Ezra to ask him if he knew anything about the raid, to which he had replied with ‘I’ll tell you when you get home’ and had sent Gabriel spiralling even more.

Gabriel kicked off his shoes in the hallway and stormed into the living room, throwing the newspaper on Ezra’s lap in an angry flourish.

“Explain.”

Ezra was sitting on one of the sofas alone and had barely reacted to Gabriel’s sudden ambush. He picked up the newspaper and looked at the front page. Gabriel dropped onto the other sofa, elbows on his knees.

“I met up with Silas tonight,” said Ezra, sounding defeated. Gabriel’s stomach knotted. “He says he wasn’t at Moonlight when it happened and most of their workers are off the books, money under the table kinda thing. But the ones they caught…”

A heavy silence filled the room as Ezra stared down at newspaper. Gabriel clenched his jaw.

“What happened?”

Ezra blinked slowly and his jaw jutted out, something he did when he was trying to suppress his emotions.

“They’re dead, Gabriel.” His voice came out hoarse. “The ones that were picked up. None of them survived.”

Ezra’s eyes flickered to him. Red rimmed them. He looked so young in that moment, like all his vampire years had been stripped away and he was just a lost twenty-year-old burdened with far too much.

Gabriel hadn’t been to a vampire bar in years and so had no connection to any of the staff. That was not the case for Ezra. Gabriel was going to end the conversation there because, even though they had been together for several decades, the two of them weren’t great when it came to emotionally supporting one another; but it was clear that Ezra had a lot to get off his chest.

“The younger vampires… they were taken to hospital in the morning when they started throwing up blood in the police station. Some just kept throwing up until they…” He shuddered. Blood tears escaped his eyes. He smeared them across his temples with the back of his hand. “And the older ones who weren’t effected by the day sickness as badly… the sun got them in the station anyway.”

Gabriel could picture it. Vampires screaming in pain as their insides turned to mush. Blood pouring from every orifice as human doctors and nurses tried to pin them down on hospital beds, not understanding what was happening. Vampires setting on fire in the police station when they passed by a window.

“How do you know all this?” Gabriel asked, own voice thick with emotion.

“Silas.” Ezra looked down. The sound of his blood tears hitting the newspaper was so loud in the silence. “He knows a doctor. He sneaks blood bags out for him from donors. He witnessed the whole thing.”

“Fuck.” Gabriel ran his hand through his hair and dropped back against the back of the sofa.

They both sat there, looking everywhere but at each other as they processed the information. Anger suddenly burned deep inside Gabriel’s chest. He clenched his jaw, folded his arms, and expelled a heavy breath through his nose.

“So this is it, isn’t it?” he hissed, knowing full well his anger was just a coating for his real absolute terror. “It’s over. We’re done for. They know.”

Their eyes found each other. Ezra’s face was now streaked with blood, emphasising the helplessness in his huge, brown doe eyes. His mouth worked before it formed the words.

“We’re not a secret anymore.”