Suburban Vampire: A Tale of the Human Condition -- With Vampires

Chapter 9

Elizabeth burst into Father's office. He looked up from behind the files he had been shuffling through, upset that anyone would dare disturb him while he was doing important House business.

"Have you seen the news?" she asked.

"I saw the news earlier today, Elizabeth, and it was sufficiently satisfying, thank you—"

"The local news," she interrupted, a transgression she would not normally allow herself to commit. In this case, however, the cause was worth risking Father's wrath. "You'll want to see this."

Father took a remote control from the top of his polished walnut executive desk and pointed it at the flat LCD TV that sat within a niche in the wood-paneled wall to his right side. The TV flashed to life as Father selected a local network affiliate. Just about every local station was providing continuous coverage of the events that had just happened at Clackatonic Faire Mall. News anchors engaged in pointless, inane chatter about things for which they actually had little solid information. News crawls displayed the same information the reports were spewing, only in a slightly less annoying fashion.

"Another mass shooting. Humans killing humans. A waste of good blood but ultimately uninteresting," Father observed.

He told Elizabeth that he did not see the point to this distraction from his work; Elizabeth advised him to change the channel. Father was not one to waste time channel surfing, finding the exercise tedious. Channel after channel was the same. Only the faces of the talking heads changed.

Father's impatience grew. "I still don't see the point—"

"There!" Elizabeth cried as she pointed at the screen. The picture was that of a middle-aged white man with slight male-pattern baldness and wire-frame glasses. He did not look particularly remarkable to Father. The still picture gave way to video of the same man, only now he wasn't wearing glasses.

"Law enforcement authorities say that Mr. Campbell's actions saved the lives of multiple mall patrons and employees," a bouncy female voice announced. "Clackamas County Sheriff Franklin Forrest today called Mr. Campbell the hero of Clackatonic Faire." The camera once again jumped, this time to an image of a green-uniformed African American sheriff, who began praising the heroism of this unremarkable-looking man.

Father looked at Elizabeth. "This is a waste of my time," he said as the video feed jumped back to recorded images of an interview with this Scott Campbell fellow.

"Record the scene so you can freeze the frame and take a closer look," Elizabeth insisted.

Father did so, hoping to appease the vampiress so that she would just go away. Eventually, he was able to hold an image of Scott's homely face on the screen.

"So what? What is your interest in Mr. Scott Campbell?" Father asked.

"Look at his eyes."

Father did so but initially did not see anything of interest.

"Scroll back a couple seconds and advance the footage slowly. See, in this frame he's looking away from the camera, but as he turns to face the interviewer, just for a second...wait for it."

Father finally saw what Elizabeth wanted him to see. In Scott's eyes, just for a second, was a darkness that only another vampire could recognize. It was something subtle that ordinary humans would not be able to detect. But even in the pixelated frame, Father could see it. The darkness of the soul. The shadow of death. It was unmistakable.

Father stood erect and glared at the screen. "No," he said. His emotional state was usually hard to read. His granite face rarely showed sign of emotion. Even now, it did not change, but Elizabeth still knew what he was thinking, what he was feeling. She felt his anger, burning within like coal in a furnace.