“And so he says, ‘I’ve got an alibi!’ Like… All I said was I wanted to talk to you about the case, man. Good job incriminating yourself.”
I’m only half-listening to Daniel’s tales of his time on the police force. I'm pretty sure he's told me this one before, but he's really enjoying telling it to me all the same. He's even added some fresh new expletives to it. Even if he's just rehashing the same thing over, I like to hear him talk so I won’t stop him.
It's so weird being back on Maggy’s farm. It doesn’t feel like it has changed at all, even if it doesn't look the same after all these years. The picturesque summer playland I remember visiting as a teenager is gone. Everything is murky grey snow and lantern light now that unending darkness has befallen the world. There are no more horses to graze in the paddock edged by the fence I'm sitting on. They were eaten by a swarm sometime before Daniel and I showed up. The pond that used to be filled with friendly farm ducks is frozen over and silent. Without the flowers that covered every inch of the property, the place looks dead.
Still, being here feels the same - welcoming, safe, loving. Seeing the kids, Jay, Mom, Aunt Maggie before the end that we all know is coming almost makes it all ok. It feels like I’m home for the first time in years. I’ve missed that feeling.
If I could just get up the courage to talk to Dad…
“Earth to Erin.”
I look up at Daniel, shaking off the thought of Dad's disappointed grimace when he saw me for the first time in years just a few days ago. “What?”
“Seriously?”
“What?”
“Why do I even bother talking to you?” He smirks as he says it, letting his cigarette roll to the corner of his lips.
He has a nice smile. I wonder if he realizes it. “Because you look stupid talking to yourself.”
A puff of frosty breath mixed with smoke is his answer to that. “If I’m boring you, just say so.” He leans against the fence post and pushes some of his unexceptional brown hair away from his equally unexceptional brown eyes. He's in desperate need of a haircut. It's gotten long enough to escape his beanie. I do miss that Generic Cop Cut™ he had when we first met, just a little.
“You could never bore me, darling.” It’s the truth. Sometimes I wonder what the two of us could have gotten up to if we’d met earlier. He’s a good(ish) guy. He’s smart. All of his unhealthy coping mechanisms play well with mine. We might have really had a shot at a relationship with enough time. But there’s no point in pursuing anything now, apocalypse and all.
Two figures emerge from the garage in the distance with their long, dancing shadows black in the snow from the lantern one of them is carrying. They're heading our way; one of the two lagging a few paces behind the other.
Daniel mumbles a quiet, “Thank God,” when he spots them and flicks his cigarette into the snow. “I thought they were gonna leave us out here all night.” Like the gentleman he is on occasion, he offers me a hand as I hop down from my perch on the old split log fence.
“About time,” I call out, unable to immediately tell who is coming to relieve us.
“Shut up, Erin,” Osbourne yells back. "Everything been ok so far?"
"Yeah. It's been quiet," Daniel affirms.
"Ok. We've got it from-" Osbourne doesn't even finish before Daniel rushes off towards the house, "-here." Osbourne is scowling, an expression barely visible in all his wiry blond facial hair, when he finally gets to me.
I shoulder my rifle and pick up my own lantern to head in. "I refilled the coffee stash in the barn if you need it."
"Thanks."
Jay is looking rough. It's no wonder he was falling so far behind Osbourne on the way up from the house. I can tell he hasn't slept and I can smell the liquor on him before he even gets within arms reach. "Erin, can you do me a favor? Meredith and Benji are still up. Do you mind…?" He doesn't finish the question. He doesn't need to.
"I'll put them to bed. Just be careful out here, ok?" I stop myself from bitching at him about getting shitfaced before watch. He knows he needs to get his act together for the kids, so there isn't any point in lecturing him. He's heard it from nearly every person here already and piling on won't help.
A weak but thankful smile crosses his face. It makes his single dimple appear, which is a rare sight since his wife, Gabby, was eaten. "Always." He sends me off with a little hug and a kiss on the top of my head.
I wave goodbye to Osbourne as I follow the slushy rut in the snow back to the house.
It's quiet inside. It seems like pretty much everyone has turned in for the night. Someone has left a sloppy peanut butter sandwich on the counter for me. Judging from how poorly sliced the bread is and how much of the filling is on the outside, I assume it was the kids. It tastes like love.
I kick off my boots and hang up my coat in the laundry room before making my way downstairs.
Joseph is sitting cross-legged on the floor in the family room working on… something. Knowing him, it's probably something dangerous that he should be doing in the garage rather than down here with a lit joint in his mouth and no shirt on. He barely looks up when I put my rifle back in the crate beside him. "How was watch, ma petite puce?"
"Nothing to report. Are the kids in their room?"
"Probably," he says, nodding, his dark eyes back on whatever he was messing with.
"Please don't blow us all up."
"No guarantees," he says with a half-grin.
I find the kids in the first guest room off of the family room. Meredith is on the bed with her nose in a book. Benji is cuddled up next to her quietly sniffling.
Poor little guy hasn't stopped crying since Gabby died. I had tried so hard not to let him see the final sacrifice she made for him. It is all my fault his memory of his mother is forever tainted by the visions of her being torn apart by a cloud of magic insects.
I'm thankful Meredith didn't have to go through that, even if she's had to go through every other horrible thing that's happened to them since it all started. Still, I worry about her. Where Benji is letting all the pain and horror out, she's bottling it all up the way her father did when we were kids. I know she does it to look strong for them. I haven't seen her cry even once, but I've seen that familiar, vacant, haunted look of despair cross her face when she thinks she's alone. That was Jay's default expression for years and I was one of the only ones who saw it.
I lean against the doorframe, feeling the weariness of a hard day setting in. "What are you two still doing up?"
"Benji couldn't sleep," Meredith answers with the tiniest edge of frustration.
"Bad dreams, bud?"
He sits up, wiping his puffy little face on his sleeve as he nods.
I stroll over and sit down on Jay's saggy air mattress across from their bed. Benji takes that as his signal to clamber over Meredith and join me. He isn't nearly as small as he used to be, but I still let him get into my lap and snuggle up to me like he did when he was little. It's one of the only things that calms him down.
Meredith puts her book on the nightstand as she burrows into her covers. It takes a second for me to realize what it is. I haven't seen that battered orange hardcover in almost fifteen years. After all this time, I have to wonder who'd hung on to it. It had to have been Jay or Mom.
In a way, it makes sense that at the end of the world, in the weight of what I've become, I'd see the thing that sparked the changes that burned down what my life could have been.
"Aunt Erin," Meredith finally says, breaking the silence, "can I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"How old were you when you found out about all the magic stuff?"
"About your age." I nod towards that damn book but try not to let my feelings about it show. "That was actually my very first grimoire."
She hesitates, staring at it. I wonder what she's been told about it and, by association, me. I don't have to wonder long before she asks, "Why won't anybody talk about back then? Back when you and Dad were growing up?"
"Because…" There are so many reasons, and almost all of them are some variation of me doing something stupid and horrible like the stupid, horrible person I am. "Well… because it is a really long story."
Benji mumbles something that is muffled by the hand pressed to his mouth. Meredith nods like she understood him though. She nestles into her pillow a little more and asks, "would you tell us?"
"As, like, a bedtime story?" I larify.
"Yeah."
I sit there quietly for a moment with both of them watching me expectantly. I can't tell them no. I wouldn't be able to handle their disappointment if I did. Still, I'm not sure they're ready to hear the truth of how I ended up banished from the family and living as an indentured servant to an elder vampire for the last twenty years.
They'll find out the truth eventually, I decide. Maybe it is better for them to hear it from me.
This is going to hurt.
"Ok... Well... Where do I start?"
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