THE LION

Jonathon awakened to find everyone gone. He raced into all the tiny, one time, storage rooms. They were all empty. He bounds up the stairs to the main room. All is quiet and bathed in moonlight falling in from the high, small windows. Even the Amish 'fireplace' is cold. Then his eyes are drawn to something new. He looks up to see the bleached, gray, contorted bodies of the elves and cherubs, crowded into the corners like so many ornate, plaster putti in an old Venitian palace. Sarah is there too and in the same condition. She occupies a spot above the sofa, like a goddess caught in flight, arrayed in a classic gown. He stands there transfixed. Then he hears a voice. It is Papa's voice. The newcomer steps into the moonlight and speaks - The others ran. The humans, I mean. Oh, their out there somewhere. Who cares? More for me to hunt.......... He gestures toward the gray, bleached, frozen figures on the wall......And them? I don't know how it happened. I don't. It appears I am not even aware of my own abilities.......... He grins and turns toward the cold, electronic hearth. Then he blows or exhales a bit of air toward it, causing it to instantly spark and 'crackle' to life............Papa looks up, studying the trapped and frozen immortals - I don't even know if they are truly gone, or if  they could be brought back, or what. I don't know. I just don't know. They made me angry......Annie drifts out of the shadows, dragging the corpse of a dead human. She goes to Papa and stands by his side. He softly carresses her face. She smiles........ Papa says - Like a lion on the grasslands of Africa, I have destroyed your offspring, true,you did not actually create all of them, but they were yours, inorder to make space for my own.........He  runs his fingers through Annie's hair.......Look at her. Look how eager she is. Killed it before she could take the blood. Now it's no good. It's ruined. It won't combust and disappear. But she'll learn. She'll learn.........Jonathon recognised the corpse as one of the park workers, a valued 'familiar'. The eyes were gouged out from the skull. The head grotesquely twisted on a savagely broken neck. Annie let go of the lower jaw (her handle) and allowed the body to smack down onto the floor. Then she just stood there and belched. Papa chuckled. He coldly stared at Jonathon and said - Put some clothes on and go bury him.......So Jonathon did, in a peaceful spot, kissed by moonlight, deep within the naked, winter trees. Annd he stood there thinking (and possibly praying) as the grave slowly vanished under a new, fresh, blanket of snow...............But Edith was wary. The Piney Woman was smart. Before she ran, she took the books. She has the journal and 'La Ciencia Vampirismo' too. But what would one as old as Papa need with information like that?.........