Heartbeats

Chapter Nineteen

Weeks passed quickly, and my “condition” further settled into my weekly routine.

Mason had become increasingly understanding, and he limited his complaints about not having me on Saturday morning. This was surprising, especially since I was spending those mornings with Charles in the forest I where I had first changed. I’d morph, sometimes right by the truck, and spend a few hours exploring the vacant land. Most of the time Charles would tag along and talk. Bat boy sure could run his mouth when no one was able to interrupt.

It was on these days that I learned a lot about the person he was before changing.

Charles was born sixteen years and twenty-seven days before America entered World War II, and after he turned seventeen he felt the obligation to leave his mother, his twin sisters, and their Texas farm.

He swears he only stayed sane because of his memories. While they were in freezing conditions he could reminisce on every portion of his life, the good and the bad. The good was before his father died. His mother’s smiles came naturally, and her kisses were currency. Life was simple and happy, and he had free reign of his house.

Then there were the hard memories. They were the times of constant yelling, words evolving into violent actions. Charles found his self in a drug scene, something rare in post-sixties culture. He was only fourteen the day his mother packed them up and left his dad. He was still fourteen the next day when he went back to retrieve a journal and found his dad hanging from the ceiling.

This brought on the era of sadness leading up to his departure. His mother fell apart, somewhat like mine had. Occasionally she would smile or laugh, but Charles reported those moments as rare. Things were already at the end of the fuse when she told one of her boyfriends she was pregnant. He left her.

The months of pregnancy were torturous. Charles was pretty much left to fend for himself. He would leave classes early to get in more hours of work at the grocery store, praying to make enough to support his broken family.

For the first week after she had the twins she entered a deep depression, leaving Charles to care for the newborns. He exploded after having dropped out of school, and, silently with no discussion, his mother took over after that. He left when they were three months old, enlisting without warning his mother.

Charles never talked about the war. He would tell me anything about being turned, but nothing about the grievances of humanity. It was like I had heard his whole memoir except for that one chapter, torn from its binding and burned, the only evidence it existed being its last page.

After he was turned he stowed away on a ship bound for New York. He found another vampire, Caleb, running the Broadway scene, and he was given a room to say in. Charles changed his name from Hayden Ambrose to Timothy Raines at that moment, and Caleb helped him forge the necessary documents.

A couple years into his New York residency he found Adelaide. Someone had left him in an alley dumpster on the verge of death, more venom running through her veins than blood. He brought her back to his place, and, much against Caleb’s wishes, she became part of their family.

The suspicions of people grew with time, and soon the three split. Adelaide moved with Charles when he returned to Texas (although across the state from his home). Caleb ran off to some small French town too medieval and ancestral for the American tongue to properly pronounce its name.

From there Charles and Adelaide were constantly moving, but Caleb could stay because his small town was actually a permanent vampire colony. Addy refused to leave Charles, her motives being loyalty and fear. This was the first place she had chosen for them to move to.