Chester awoke, excruciating pain pulsing through his whole body. His vision was blurred, but he could hear quiet sobs coming from somewhere near him. He vaguely recollected the events that had happened in what should have been moments before, but to him it felt like he blacked out for quite some time. Strange taste lingering inside his mouth. That nasty looking dude was hellishly strong, Chester remembered wrestling with him on the ground, the man violently tearing his skin with some kind of a blade, or were they really his nails? The image of his crooked, yellowish teeth trying to sink their way into his neck flashing through his memory. Fuck, did that freak really bit him? What the actual fuck...
Confused, he tried to pick himself up, but he felt too weak, the pain inside his body running through every inch of his being. He had been in many fights in his life, mainly in the bar fights that he had started himself in his drunkenness induced state of mind. He had a lot of anger inside of him and it was too easy to set him off. His nose has been broken several times, he got bruised ribs, broken fingers, almost all of his body has suffered injuries from his violent outbursts, but never once he felt so physically shattered as he did right now. Not only did all of the wounds hurt like hell, there was also this weird, foreign sensation, a creeping tension coming from somewhere deep inside of him, gnawing at his brain, making him hunger for something, but he couldn’t pinpoint for what exactly. What the hell did that freak do to him...
He rubbed his eyes in an attempt to sharpen his vision, finally focusing his sight on the shadowy shape nearby. It was Jamie, his daughter in pajamas, staring at him wide-eyed, tears running down her cheeks. He wanted to reassure her that he was fine, but then he noticed the man behind her, his disfigured hands gripping her by the shoulders. It was the same deformed man with unnaturally long, pointy ears, with his inhuman glowing fiery eyes fixated on Chester, observing him with a mix of curiosity and pity.
A flush of anger ran through his body. In no way he was going to let this ghastly freak take Jamie. Sure, he was a lousy father, and he didn’t care much about her until today, but he was not gonna let some kind of a creep kidnap her. Even if it was the last thing he ever did. Once again he tried to get up, but his legs gave out and he fell back to his knees. The smell of the blood from his wounds was distracting him, he felt somehow sick. “Fuck this shit...” he grunted, pressing his hands to the ground, trying to push himself up on his feet again.
Jamie watched her father struggle, she could tell he was in pain and she didn’t know what to do. She was still in shock from what she had seen earlier. The scary, ragged man with the torn face had furiously attacked her dad. She wanted to run to his aid, but she was so terrified, she could only cry and beg the bogeyman to stop hurting her daddy. Watching him sink his huge fangs into her father’s neck, horrified, she then witnessed the monster cutting his wrist and bleeding into her dad’s mouth. His body contorting and twitching in pain. She was sure he had killed him, and she thought that she was gonna be next.
Huddled in the corner of her bed, wailing in fear, she observed the bogeyman approach her. Words were coming from his hideous mouth, but she was so traumatized, she could barely hear what he was saying through her own weeping. Then the ghastly man put his wrist in front of her, blood still slowly pouring out of the wound. “Drink it, sweetie, I promise it will calm you down.”
She stared at him in terror and confusion, the words -calm you down- resonating in her head. Jamie hesitantly licked the blood from his wrist in hope that if she did as he asked, he would let her live…
Theodor gently patted her on the head, telling her that he’s not gonna hurt her and for some reason she believed him, her fear of him subsiding.
She noticed her father moving on the ground, grunting. Somehow he managed to survive, so maybe everything was going to be alright after all…
She wanted to run towards him, to hug him, but something was different. Inexplicable fear encompassed her as she got closer. There was something wrong with her dad. Even when he lashed out at her when he was drunk and angry, she’s never once felt as threatened as she did right now. She flinched slightly as she felt the man’s hands on her shoulders.
“Your father needs help, be a good girl and go to him, sweetheart.” Theodor gently whispered to her.
Jamie looked at Theodor as if expecting some kind of reassurance from him, and he gently nudged her towards Chester.
“Daddy... Are you okay?” She hesitantly approached Chester, stretching out her small hands towards him as if she could possibly help him to his feet.
When Chester saw her getting approaching, his instincts told him to not let her get close. He didn’t know why, but everything inside of him told him that he was gonna do something bad... He was going to hurt her if she got too close.
She gently stroked his face, feeling so relieved he was alright. He wasn’t a perfect dad, he often yelled at her, he was mean to her mom and he always forgot about her birthdays, but he was all she had and she loved him with all her 10yo heart.
The touch of her warm hand on his face, he could see the worry for him on her little face. Despite all of the things he had said to her earlier today and years of neglect and bad parenting, somehow she still believed in him and cared for him.
Jamie leaned forward to wrap herself around him in an attempt to bring them both at least a tiny bit of comfort.
And he wanted to push her away, to tell her to get away from him, but he couldn’t, something primal in the depths of his insides wanted him to let go, to feast, to fill the void inside him…
In a fleeting moment he grabbed her and without any difficulties sunk his face into her neck, her small body collapsing instantly in his savage embrace.
He felt someone’s hands pulling his face away, away from the satisfying, sweet sustenance.
“That’s enough. It would really suck if you killed your own daughter, wouldn’t it?”
Chester’s initial anger at being yanked away from the delicious taste of blood, changed into sheer horror as he saw Jamie’s limp body in his arms. The nasty dude next to him, holding his face away from her bloodied neck.
“Fuck!...fuck!..” Chester was bewildered at what he had done. “Shit...I...what the hell...” He laid her down, and frantically tried to look for a pulse. Thankfully, she was still alive.
“Hey, Jamie?” He gently patted her on a cheek in a hope of reviving her, but although she was faintly breathing, she didn’t regain consciousness, her body pale and quite cold to the touch. “What have I done...”
Chester was in so much distress that Theodor could easily take unconscious Jamie into his arms. When Chester realized what was happening, he tried to get up and stop him.
“You are not taking her anywhere, you ugly piece of shit!” He managed to stand up, the tension was gone, but the pain was still there. He took a few steps towards Theodor in an attempt to charge at him, but the pain inside of his bones was unbearable and he collapsed to the ground, angrily demanding Theodor to not take Jamie away from him.
Theodor held Jamie in one of his arms, gently stroking her hair as he observed with a slight amusement her father desperately trying to stand up in an attempt to stop him. As if he ever had a chance…
After a moment, Theodor took an envelope out of his pocket, placing it on the nightstand of their motel room. “Let it go, boy. As much as I enjoy your persistence, it is useless, your body needs to adapt first. I imagine you have a lot of questions. You will find a lot of answers for what I did to you in this letter and if you ever want to see her again, I suggest you abide by its contents.”
He was about to leave, but then suddenly stopped in front of the door. “The little one here is gonna be safe...” Theodor had followed them for a while and while he had witnessed Chester neglect and mistreat the little girl often, he could see it on his face tonight that he did care for her and no matter how badly he wanted to teach this drunk asshole a lesson, he couldn’t just leave him without reassurance that his offspring was not going to be harmed. The decision if Chester was going to believe him or not was entirely up to him.
He was not a monster, or at least not the kind of monster that would hurt a child if he could avoid it. He made him feed from her to break him, to make him feel guilty and thus be more likely to follow the rules inside the letter. He was pretty sure he would be able to take him from the girl in time, before he would cause her any serious harm. She will be alright after a few days, kids recover miraculously fast. No damage done.
For now, he will let the girl live with some of his ghouls, in many aspects she will be better cared for than when she lived with this constantly wasted and violent mockery of a father.
He chose him for the Embrace, because of his raw energy, physical strength and ability to withstand a lot of physical pain, not because he thought he was a good person in any way. Surely, he will require a lot of training to be able to control his rage, but with his guidance (and intimidation if necessary) he was going to become a perfect leg-breaker… The girl was just a form of insurance, a good asset to have around to keep her father under control.
“The sunrise is soon approaching, find yourself a dark place to hide…” Theodor lovingly stroked the girl’s face, putting his face near hers, sniffing her, his monstrous face grinning and a disturbing amount of pus trickling down his severely disintegrated jaw. “Don’t do anything stupid.” Was the last thing he said to Chester before his hunched figure vanished in the shadows, leaving Chester confused, angry and twisting in pain, unable to follow the monster that has just snatched his daughter.
Chester didn’t understand anything. What the hell happened. Who was that freak? What has he done to him… He tried to make his way to the nightstand to grab the letter, but he started to feel unnaturally exhausted, every move was harder and harder to execute and not only because of the pain. A strange anxiety was rising inside of him and as he glanced at the window, he could see tiny sunlight beams making their way slowly through the blinds. Panic started to set inside of him and his eyes fixated on the dark spot under Jamie’s bed that was situated in the corner of their motel room.
Feeling like a pursued animal running away from the inevitable end, he made his way towards the bed, cramming himself under it, pressing himself as close to the wall as he possibly could.
He could feel his whole body slowly stiffen. So this is what it must feel like to be dead… was the first thought that he could produce once he felt safe.
He stared at the door that was in his field of view and his gaze fell on the teddy bear that he had dropped when he saw that freak talking with Jamie. How ironic it was, that he had bought it to apologize for earlier today, when he shoved her while she was begging him to stay home, because there was apparently a bogeyman outside… He should have believed her… Instead, he yelled at her for her childish behavior and left her home alone to go back to the bar in order to waste just another night of his miserable life around strangers, drinking himself to death.
And now all he could think of was that one of the last words to his daughter were that she was a burden, that his life would have been better without her and that he regretted taking her from her slut mother…
And to think that for once he had really wanted to change, he wanted to try to cut the booze and to try and be a better dad. He bought her the teddy bear to start over, because he had realized that he has crossed the line tonight. She was just a kid, it was not her fault that he had been so frustrated with his life and struggling with the realization that his marriage had failed because he had been feeling trapped, and that all of his frustrations had turned him into an abusive jerk. She deserved a better childhood, so she didn’t end up growing up bitter and angry like him…. But instead, it was all over now. “I...am so fucking sorry, Jamie...”
Now that plushy toy was a symbol of the failure that he was, its inanimate black eyes staring at him, blaming him for everything that he’s ever done to his daughter and all of the horrible things that were going to happen to her, all because he was a shitty, unfit parent. His dead eyes fixated on the toy haunting his conscience as his body shut down completely, sending him into the void.