after he took a walk around the town. They agreed that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the warrior to become more familiar with his surroundings, and acquaint himself with the terrain in advance of a certain conflict.
Manuel walked and walked until he felt compelled to stop in front of a vacant house, which was clear across the town from Hartwell’s. He stared at the front door and waited patiently for his mark to emerge from the structure.
Once Brenda Vinson was done pacifying Billinglsey, she walked out of the front door from one situation to another potential issue. She felt the energy of the handsome stranger standing upright across the street, and it was nothing like she had ever experienced before. This was raw, original energy that was of interest to her, instead of being compelled to act on someone else’s behalf.
Brenda was so paranoid that she decided to walk out of the neighborhood instead of walking straight across the street to the big chief, which was obviously her preference.
She cleared her thoughts of Gabriel and then said to Manuel internally, “Follow me,” and he replied in kind, “As far as it takes.”
Brenda kept walking and was so enthralled with the pursuit that she didn’t stop for the next 20 minutes until she was standing in front of the Beach Haven Café.
“Won’t you join me for some afternoon tea,” he said internally.
She broke the outer silence, “I was thinking more of some scotch on the rocks.”
He smiled, “Ah, there’s nothing like a few shots of fire water to calm the nerves.”
So they walked a few doors down to the Beach Haven Tavern and sat on a few stools at the bar.
“Two glasses of your finest scotch barkeep,” Manuel asked the bartender in a tongue that suggested to Brenda that he had been around for a while.
“New to town?” she asked, as the bartender returned with two glasses of scotch on the rocks.
“Here’s to new beginnings,” Manuel proposed as a toast.
“To new beginnings,” she happily repeated.
“And yes, I am new to town,” Manuel stated.
“Do you plan to stay long?” Brenda asked because she had seen her share of men come and go.
Manuel usually had a way with words and ladies, but he was having difficulty expressing himself about this specific topic.
“Somehow I’m getting the feeling that it depends on you?”
“How is that?” an intrigued Brenda asked.
Then Manuel changed direction before he got into the meat of the conversation.
“Why were you in that house?”
She was equal to the task, “Why were you standing outside of that house?”
“Because that is where my feet took me. I started walked from the bagel place and saw that as my path, he countered.
“Eating with Gary and Thad?” she asked, trying to prolong the chit-chat phase of the conversation long enough to raise the interpersonal comfort level. And then she took a nice sip of whisky to calm her nerves.
“Yes,” he replied.
“They love that place,” she replied and then picked up the seriousness of his gaze, which meant that he wanted to put an end to the small talk and get to the main event.
“Bagels are good,” he said with a straight face.
“I am a witch,” she said without further hesitation.
Manuel jumped out of his stool and on to his feet, as the thought of encountering another witch was too much for him to handle. He nervously reached into his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill and dropped it on the bar before walking out of the bar.
He was so disoriented that he ran out of the back door of the establishment. Brenda downed the rest of her poison and then followed him closely into the back alley.
Manuel reached the dimly-lit alley and Brenda ran and lunged for his left hand with her right hand and made the connection. She tapped into his brain and searched for anything witch-related, and was treated to quite a horror reel.
When the short movie was over she pulled away and said, “Wow! You must have really done that woman wrong to make her so angry!”
Manuel dropped his head in shame and then said as he looked at Brenda, “I broke her heart many times.”
“Then she turned you into a beast?” Brenda asked.
“A vampire. I was the first in the family,” Manuel explained, infusing his place at the root of Hartwell’s family tree.
Brenda’s eyebrows rose at the possibilities, “Then I guess you’ve met Thomas Hartwell?”
“He is the reason I am in Beach Haven. I heard the distress calls of a primate but decided to visit a being that needed by help more.”
“I was just in that primate’s house,” she stated.
Manuel nodded, “That makes sense. Is there anyone else in that abode that I might know?”
“Who else is in your line?”
“Lowery. Alexander Lowery,” he replied.
“Yes he is in there, but I brought him back from the dead.”
Manuel was interested in the potential of correcting his mistake.
“So, what side are you on?” Brenda asked.
“I know where I stand, but what side are you on?” he countered.
“That depends?” she replied.
He was disappointed at first that there were conditions being placed on her allegiance.
“I’m on the side that will end all of this turmoil and help me live a normal life with my family?” she stated.
“Then we are in agreement,” he replied.
TWENTY-THREE
“I wish there was a way that we didn’t have to involve the kids in this anymore,” Hartwell said to a table of adults that included Maggie, Daniel Nicole, Thaddeus, Garrison, Cal, Emily, Sharon, Aaron, Andrew, Carla, Blake and Belinda.
Hartwell was visibly agitated and stood up from the table, although he could have used his vampirical powers and not expended any physical energy.
“We all started this battle and I think we should be the ones that finish it.”
“But what guarantees do we have that it will end, Thomas?” Thaddeus asked.
Just then, Manuel walked into the room and said, “There are no guarantees in life, or even death for that matter. Are there any among us that crave for a ‘normal’ life, if not for just the younger generation?”
Hartwell nodded in thanks for the assistance.
“Listen, I don’t think there are any of us that don’t enjoy the sweet struggle of the fight.” Hartwell laughed, “Especially you, Calvin.”
Everyone laughed in response and Cal smirked at Hartwell, his greatest foe of his lifetime.
“But there has to come a time when it comes to an end! And from what I can gather from my trip with Manuel, the fighting will never end until we all are destroyed.”
Agent Blake had a keen eye and ear for observation.
“So, it’s either total destruction, or…?”
Manuel filled in the blank, “Mortality.”
That was a tough pill to swallow for a group of supernatural beings that had been god-like for so long. The thought of getting older and then passing on one day was a common thought among this group, from the last time they became mortal when Hartwell reached his 100th death.
Back then, the hunters tormented Hartwell by killing him in sync with the daily soup special at the Beach Haven Diner, before Cal was released in time to record number 100.
Hartwell joked, “I don’t think there’s enough soup in Beach Haven to get me to 100!”
Everyone laughed, especially the hunters, because they knew he was more than 50 deaths away from his and the group’s mortality.
Blake stood up and turned toward Manuel and said, “But none of this will end until we stop things at the root. We have cut the branches off before but they always grow back.”
Then Manuel put up the three middle fingers of his right hand, which instantly captivated everyone in the room.
“You are the key to all things Hartwell,” Agent Blake said, and all of his y
ears of research had come down to this moment.
“Yes, my death holds the key to all of our freedom.”
Hartwell was so enmeshed in the conversation until he had a random thought.
“Why don’t we send the kids to Disneyworld?”
Emily Brewster was about to jump on Hartwell for such a trivial suggestion in the middle of such a serious discussion, but the idea started to resonate with her and everyone else at the table.
“But we better buy round-trip airfare tickets because they might be able to fly there without the plane, but the way home might prove difficult,” she said.
There was a renewed sense of spirit and energy around the house following the discussion, which revealed crucial elements that had not yet been supported with a plan. It was decided that Aaron would chaperone Kayla and Maxwell—the family’s battle strategists—Samuel, Ariel and Claire Vinson were also asked to tag along. Everyone else that stayed had a history, a vested interest, in the potential life change. Joe and Katherine Winters, two peacemakers, were also sent plane tickets so they could bring Bryce and Cheryl down from Oregon to Florida to enjoy the trip as well.
TWENTY-FOUR
“Is everything set?” an impatient Gabriel Billingsley asked his witch Brenda Vinson.
“Yes, the change should occur tonight as the moon peaks in the sky,” she replied.
“Then we attack tonight!” Gabriel excitedly exclaimed as he turned away from Brenda and his human form and pounded his ape chest to in view of the other apes, who followed suit and generated a great deal of excitement.
Brenda started to walk toward the front door and hopefully out of Billingsley’s life for good, until he stopped her.
“What else do I need to know?”
“They sent all of their kids to Disneyworld,” Brenda replied.
Gabriel remained in his ape exterior and was thinking only about the battle, not how nice it was that the kids got to go on such a cool vacation.
“So, they no longer have their battle strategists, or the ability to duplicate our force?”
“Yes, I believe that is correct,” she agreed.
“Then that will make our task that much more simple,” he confidently stated.
She walked a few paces and then turned around for one more parting shot.
“You would be mistaken if you underestimate that group. See you on the other side,” Brenda said, but the door slammed in her face about mid-way through her sentence.
True to her word, the apes that had lost their human identity came back on line just after midnight. The faces and bodies of Eloise Phillips, Mary Brewster, Julie and Gregory Justice, Randy Prince, Agent Terrence Carter and Alexander Lowery were now visible to everyone including their leader Gabriel Billinglsey.
“So nice to have you all back where you belong!”
“Isn’t that a lyric from ‘Hello Dolly’?” Mary Brewster asked Eloise Phillips.
“Where were we all of this time?” Gregory Justice asked.
His wife Julie had other concerns, “Did we win?’
Randy Prince gave it a shot, “I don’t think so.”
Agent Terrence Carter added, “Yeah, if slinging your own feces is winning, then I think we won.”
Lowery walked up to Billingsley and asked, “How long were we under?”
Billingsley replied, “Long enough to have a real chance at success this time.”
“Excellent!” Lowery replied. “You might want to hose the others down while I take a shower. This place is ripe!” Hartwell’s sire in another life punned.
“It’s time!” Thaddeus said internally to the entire group, as people were relaxing with their loved ones in different rooms and were scattered throughout the expanse of the spacious house.
Within minutes, all 16 members of Team Hartwell were gathered in the main room, including Manuel Ortiz, who was about to experience his first battle in quite some time.
“How does this work exactly?” he asked Garrison.
“We line up on one side of the field and they line up across from us on the other side of the field, and then we charge at each other,” Gary explained.
“Just like old times,” Manuel responded.
“Yep,” Gary concurred.
Daniel turned to his fathers—Hartwell and Cal—and asked, “What are we gonna’ do without a strategist or rolling protection?”
The two men looked at each other in disbelief, and wondered where they might have gone wrong as parents?
Cal asked Hartwell, “Do you want to handle this one?”
Hartwell replied, “No, by all means, you’re probably better suited to answer,” and then smirked from knowing what Cal would say.
Cal moved closer to Daniel and grunted, “We’re gonna’ give them an old-fashioned beating.”
Daniel looked at Hartwell for confirmation, “Yes that sounds about right.”
The rules of the battle were simple: if either Hartwell or Manuel died, or every member of the ape clan perished, then the fight would be over.
“Keep an eye on Manuel, will you?” Hartwell asked Thad and Gary as they left the house on the way to the great lawn at Beach Haven Park.
“Will do,” Gary replied as Thaddeus also nodded in affirmation.
There was a soft mist falling from the blackened sky as the Hartwell 16 progressed from a fast walk to a jog, to an all-out sprint until they reached the field.
Billingsley sensed their presence and said to his fellow apes, “It’s show time! Let’s go!”
The nine people in apes clothing swung through the trees as their preferred method of transportation until they reached the outskirts of the park. Then they took to the ground in knuckle-dragging, galloping fashion.
“They’re big,” Manuel said to Hartwell, who was standing next to him.
Hartwell was rarely in the mood to back up, and hoped to tap into Manuel’s inner warrior.
“So?”
Manuel looked at Hartwell and his icy stare and mirrored the sentiment, “So?”
Hartwell was getting all kinds of strange vibes as the apes approached. He usually was able to focus solely on the fight, but Manuel’s strange energy seemed curiously out of place. He thought, “Surely this man has faced much worse than this?”
Although the apes were not of this world, either were vampires, protectors or hunters.
“Don’t leave anything behind!” Hartwell yelled internally to the group. “Use all of your changes if you have to!”
It appeared that the apes’ only strategy was totally annihilation, as the zoo captivity had made them extra motivated.
The action slowed in Team Hartwell’s minds as the first blows were struck. Hartwell focused on Billingsley and Lowery because he knew the duo would be coming at him just on instinct. Billingsley never stopped being angry at Hartwell for ‘stealing’ Maggie away, even though he all-but-abandoned her. And Lowery was still enraged that Hartwell and company stopped his endless reign of terror.
Just as Billingsley was about to swing at Hartwell, Maggie came out of nowhere and blindsided him with the help of Sharon, who had turned into an Orca killer whale, sending Billingsley deep into that ‘good’ night.
Lowery ran straight into Hartwell, sending him back a good 50 yards before Hartwell picked up him up, flipped him upside-down and forcefully drive him into the turf!
Elsewhere, Brandon justice and his wife Valerie squared off against Brandon’s abusive parents, Gregory and Julie, who he had drained of their blood and buried in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean before they were later exhumed and resurrected by Billingsley and Brenda Vinson.
Valerie was hoping that Brandon’s father, or the ape that was now his father would not resort to his usual name calling, but that dream was obviously short-lived.
“Come and get some, BJ!”
Brandon turned to his wife and asked, “What did he just call me?’
Valerie started to reason with her husband, but Julie Justice wanted no part of any
nurturing of her ‘soft’ son.
“He called you BJ, BJ!”
“Oh boy!” Valerie said as she took a step back and waited for the tornado that was her husband to pass through.
“I hate it when you call me BJ!” Brandon roared as he changed into a new iteration of a hybrid creature, half lion and half man.
Valerie took a stab at naming the creature, which had the head and the upper body of a lion and the lower half of a man.
“Li-man,” she said, although her guess served to stop the action while everyone else took a stab at the name.
“I would have gone with Mion,” Julie Justice said.
“Yeah, I like that one!” Greg agreed. “But I would adjust it slightly and call him a BJ-ion! Get it? There’s a BJ in front and then an ion.”
And the three other people, including Brandon, said, “Yeah, we got that.”
“I hate being called BJ-ion!” Brandon roared and then charged at his parents before mauling them.
The 2-to-1 advantage for Team Hartwell was leveraged through most of the other matchups. Gary and his daughter Sharon teamed up against Gary’s dead wife Eloise, who was no longer soliciting weakened emotions from her ex-husband and daughter. The duo was aggressive from the onset, blending their skills to dismantle any offense the confused ape could mount.
Gary backed Eloise up as a wolf distracting her as Sharon flew over her head as a hawk and then changing into a grizzly bear, pinning the ape down for a moment after impact. The moon cast a shadow on Eloise as bear Sharon rolled away and bottlenose dolphin Gary kicked into the air and then changed into an Orca killer whale just before splattering impact.
Cal and Thaddeus Brewster had a similar dynamic going with Thad’s dead wife, and Cal’s mother, Mary. Cal went in as a pit bull and distracted Mary by biting her ape ankle, clenching on to the surface with his mighty locking jaw. By the time Mary kicked her son the dog free, Thad chugged through the hitting zone with a massive clothes line across the face, which separated Mary’s head from her body and ended her night.
Manuel stood motionless the entire time and watched the action while being protected by Carla, who was a hunter by biology. Thad and Gary had transferred the line of guardianship to Carla by Thad yelling, “Carla, watch Manuel!”
Andrew and Emily went right after her ex-husband Randy Prince. Since they wanted to prolong the agony, no changes were made early on for these protectors. Drew played off his mother’s actions the way his Uncle Cal did for years, as was her nature, when her twin brother Cal was the finisher.
Emily loved to engage the enemy in sword play, so she walked up to Prince with a pair of swords and then Randy morphed back into his human form as she tossed him the sword from her left hand.
“All of these years and I never knew you could use one of these,” he said while examining the blade like it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“I want to remind you that I was captain of my college fencing team,” Randy said with a strong suggestion of arrogance as he ran the blade back and forth across his body.
Emily rolled her eyes, “Yes, I’ve heard!”
Randy kept warming up until Emily grew impatient.
“Are you ready?” she yelled.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Randy then opened his eyes and extended his left arm and waved her forward with his fingers.
“Seriously?” Emily questioned as Drew swooped in from Randy’s blindside and lopped his head off with one clean slice of his blade.
“I swear! I