San Francisco by Night
Reisah Sunnen
It was simple, a Baptist minister and his young wife
out for a Sunday afternoon drive. The couple had been fighting. The church was not doing
well, bills were piling up and the preacher was frustrated because they had been trying
for over a year to start a family.
The day was hot and humid, normal for an afternoon in North Carolina. The car, run down
and neglected for all its use for church errands, overheated. They were stranded in the
middle of the country woods. Jared, ignored when it came to cars, tried to remove the cap
on the radiator and add more water. Of course, the pressure caused the radiator to explode
in Jared's face, burning him severely. Maggie tried to help him, but a gang of bikers
appeared and began harassing theem. As Jared screamed the holy gospel to them, his face
blistering from the burns, the bikers raped his young wife, leaving them battered and
broken down in the night.
They were evil sons of bitches, Jared wept. They were beastial and vilent, one even biting
him horridly and forcing him to drink the vial of vitæ that coursed through his veins.
And when the bikers left, a state patrolman happened upon the couple. They were rushed to
the county hospital and their wounds tended to. Jared healed himself, or rather he thought
God had healed him miraculously. The burns leaving his face in a mere three days, the
three days it took Christ to rise from the dead.
Maggie had become pregnant during the rape, but Jared wouldn't hear of it. He believed
they were blessed by God for the trials they suffered. Jared, suddenly unable to appear in
daylight and ravaging the forests at night, lost his church, his pride and joy. But his
prophecies and great knowledge and power that was bestowed upon him by God, allowed him to
nourish the church in other ways. Seven months later, Maggie gave birth to three girls,
two twins the other a fraternal. The babies quite undoubtedly resembled the ghoul that
traveled with the bikers that night.
The first child was born first, three minutes following was Reisah and an hour later the
third baby (names left out intentionally, other 2 were PC characters) was born. The
blessed babies were loved and cherished by the couple, but there were problems to follow.
Reisah grew into a happy and healthy cherub, while the other two were stricken with
violent cases of colic. For six months, neither baby couldn't hold down their mother's
milk, cried solidly the entire time, driving their father to madness with their screaming.
Then one night, the final day of October as Maggie held both the eldest and the youngest
babies on the porch, passing candy to the children that played trick-or-treat, both
stopped crying. Their eyes lit up as the colic passed, as if in rebirth.
It was a sign from God, Jared believed. The baby reborn on the night of the dead.
"Maggie, my dearest. They are not our children, but the children of the demon that
spawned them. We must destroy them before they destroy us." Maggie would not even
consider it, they were as much her daughter as the happy-go-lucky Reisah was. "My
love, my life," he spewed his words to her, "They are from the seed of the devil
himself!"
"They are also of my blood, Jared, or have you forgotten that? You resent our
children because they are not from you, but of a vistor in the night." Maggie took
both babies in her arms and carried them to their bed where they had slept every day with
their mother. While Maggie sang lullabyes to them, finally, quiet daughters... Jared
rocked Reisah to sleep on his shoulder. In the vampire he believed to be blessed with
immortality, a hunger stirred, the scent of his baby girl's blood. He fed his hunger, her
sweet blood sang to his veins and he felt the blessing of God within her.
Years passed, Reisah growing into a bright an intelligent child, warm and loving. The
other two grew into a hyperactive child with a desire for life and experience. Unable to
sit still and listened, they often angered Jared to the point of violence. Reisah often
suffered for this if she mimicked her sisters in any way. He brought the belt down and
quickly strapped *his* daugter, that she may learn from her mistake. The other two would
be overcome with guilt at watching this, but soon sorrowful that their father would pay no
heed to them. The more they tried to gain his attentions, the more he turned his focuses
on Reisah.
Reisah was a sickly child from that first "kiss" from her vampire father.
Anemic, the doctors said. On medications and iron supplements since she was six months
old. Jared babied her, coddled her and tended to her every need, leaving the upbring of
the other two to poor Maggie. Their spark for excitement got them in trouble at school
until both were expelled in the first grade for biting the other kids. Their response,
"but my daddy bites Reisah and it makes her feel good!"
The children were withdrawn from the public after that. Maggie's tenth grade education a
far cry from having the ability to homeschool her girls left them lacking a decent
education. The two attention deficit hindered their abilities in anything but causing
trouble. And Reisah watched, seeing her baby sister removed from the home by two men and a
woman. The start of the end for the Sunnen family....
As Reisah and her older sister neared their teens, puberty assaulted the eldest sister.
She watched the animals surrounding their cabin, mating and giving life. She pranced
around the cabin, taunting and tempting her father unknowingly and one night caused him to
frenzy. He nearly drained the eldest daughter as other events took place. Maggie pushed in
hearing her daughter's screams and Jared lashed out at her, sending her through a window.
Maggie's neck was severed. Jared howled and fled the cabin, later returning to ravage his
wife's body in his wolf form.
Reisah witnessed the entire scene, standing a shivering mess in the doorway. She tended to
her sister through the night and the following day until her father returned, a shotgun in
hand. He claimed to have hunted the wolf that attacked their mother. He took off his belt
and screamed at Reisah to leave the demon alone, never touch her for her blood was vile
and would harm his poor Reisah. He whipped her mercilessly until he was sure she would not
go near her sister again, but Reisah deceived her father and nutured her sister back to
health during those days.
It wasn't long before Jared's madness overwhelmed him. As much as he tried to believe his
"gift" was from God, the more he knew it wasn't. He blamed the eldest daughter
for the evil, yet was to weak to take her life. He feared his daughter and in her own
demented way, she longed for his affections.
Life for the Sunnen was a long hard one, until the moment arrived again when the two men
and woman showed up once more, that faithful snowy night. Jared quoting from his bible
trying to drive them away, to force them from his home but not even he believed the words
he quote any more. Both girls screaming for them to leave their father alone and before
either could do anything, they found themselves falling, falling into an unnatural sleep.
Being removed from the home and twins life would be forever changed thereafter.
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