Straight From the Heart

            The two boys looked up at their captors with pleading eyes.  Their tears had stopped and their screams had diminished to nothing but whimpers.
            “Please Daddy don’t,” the oldest boy said as his father stood in front of him.  “We’ll behave we promise.  We didn’t mean to upset her.”
With tears streaming down his face, he looked down at the boy and moved his black hair out of his face.  He lifted up his other hand and placed the barrel of the gun onto his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he said.  “May the Lord take you in and explain to you why we’ve done this.”
He pulled the trigger and the boy fell to the floor dead.
The other boy looked up into his father’s eyes but didn’t say anything or even flinch as the hot gun was placed on his temple.
“I love you,” the father said, pulling the trigger. 
*        *        *        *
         “Mr. and Mrs. Scott?” a doctor said walking up to the family who were huddled in a corner together.
         Both of them and their two boys looked over at him with a look of worry that he had seen so many times before and hated twice as much.
         “Yes?” Mr. Scott said.
         “I’m Doctor Eugene Bailey, one of the doctors examining your daughter.”
         “How is she doing?” Mr. Scott immediately asked.
         “Can you tell us what happened to her?” Mrs. Scott added.
         “Right now she’s doing fine,” he said.  “It seems that she had a seizure.”
         “A seizure?!” Mrs. Scott exclaimed.
         “Honey please relax for a moment and let him explain to us what happened,” Mr. Scott said as he grabbed a hold of her hand.  “Go on Dr. Bailey, please.”
         “Yes Samantha had a seizure but right now that’s not the problem we are having with her.  It seems that the seizure triggered—” Bailey stopped speaking and looked down at the two boys staring up at him.
         “We are a family, doctor,” Mrs. Scott said as if reading his mind.  “The boys need to stay here and hear what you have to say just as much as we do.
         Bailey smiled down at the boys and thought that it wouldn’t matter if they listened or not.  They probably wouldn’t understand a thing he said anyways.
         He shook his head yes and continued.
         “The seizures triggered reactions to her body that none of us had ever seen before.  Some how her skin had changed to an albino color, which has caused it to become very sensitive to any strong lighting.  Luckily we caught this on time because something like this could’ve caused both rashes and blisters all throughout her body.”
         Mrs. Scott gasped as Mr. Scott squeezed her hands harder.
         Dr. Bailey continued.
         “She has been vomiting constantly which is due to possible abdominal pains and cramping.  With her being so young this is hard for us to determine, but we are sure that this is what it is from.
         “The few teeth she has have strangely changed into a red pigmentation.  We thought at first that maybe the vomiting was the cause of this but we quickly made an assessment that that wasn’t the case.
         “Now preceding your permission we collected samples of her blood, stool and her urine: urine that was unusually red also.  We’ve sent all these samples to the lab but it’ll take up to three days before we hear anything back; even with us putting a rush on it.  We’re going to have to keep her here for that duration of time because we can’t tell you if she’ll break out into another seizure.
         “Can you tell us anything about what she might have?”  Mr. Scott asked sadly as he placed his arm around Mrs. Scott who had started crying.  He placed his other arm around the front of the two boys as they looked up at him wondering what was going on.
         “Well we think that she might’ve contracted a very rare genetic disorder called congenital erythropoietic porphyria.  Now I want to first let you know that we are not a hundred percent sure about this.  This is only the prognosis that we’ve come up with from the symptoms that she has.  We won’t know anything for sure until we get back her test results.
         “This is an extremely rare disease so we don’t have much information about it.  However, the little information we do have does not mention anything about the symptoms developing so quickly.”
         “Is there anything that you can do?” Mrs. Scott whispered.
         “Is it contagious?” Mr. Scott asked.
         “No it isn’t contagious,” Dr. Bailey answered.  “And I really hate to say this—but there isn’t anything that we can do for her.  Little by little her body will get weaker and she’ll be prone to even more seizures until—it takes her life.”
         “Nooo!” Mrs. Scott shrieked as she placed her head in Mr. Scott’s chest.  “My baby is going to die,” she muffled.
         “Sheila don’t,” Mr. Scott said, putting both his arms around her.  “We have to be strong in front of the boys.”
         At the mention of the boys, she dropped to her knees and hugged them tightly, crying even louder.
         Both the boys hugged her back with confused looks on their faces.
         “What’s wrong with mommy?” the youngest one, Toby, asked as he looked up at his father.
         Mr. Scott inhaled a deep breath and when he exhaled tears fell down his face, which he quickly wiped away.
         “Your mommy is upset because your little sister is very sick,” he said.
         “Don’t worry, daddy,” the oldest one, Junior, said.  “Remember when I was real sick and you told me that I would get better and I did.  The same thing is going to happen to Sam.”
         Mr. Scott held back his tears as he spoke.  “You’re right, Junior, she will get better just like you did.”
         At this, Sheila stood up and still crying she spoke to Dr. Bailey.
         “How-how lo-o-og do-o-se sh-sh-e ha-ave?”
         “I’m not able to answer that until we get back her test results,” Dr. Bailey said.  “Only then can we give you a definite answer of what she has.”
         “And what happens if you’re right with your diagnosis?” Mr. Scott said raising his voice slightly over his wife’s crying.
         Dr. Bailey looked Mr. Scott directly in the eyes and thought about Sam: Sam, who was now sleeping in a bed made for an adult in a room by herself far away from any other patient; Sam, who he knew had looked like a golden child with her long, curly blond hair, like her mother, up until the moment that she had been brought into the hospital going through convulsions like she was being continuously electrocuted; Sam, who now looked as white as his lab coat with hair that had became as gray as a eighty year old person; Sam, who he believed could die tonight in her sleep.
         He thought about these things all in a nanosecond and then he thought about telling the Scott’s that everything was going to be all right with her.  The need to lie to them felt so strong, but he knew that ethically and morally he couldn’t do such a thing like that.
         “If she does has congenital erythropoietic porphyria, then there’s a chance that she won’t live past next month.”
         “Oh god, no!” Sheila said, hugging Mr. Scott and placing her face back into his chest.
         Only her muffled cries filled the room and after a minute she lifted her head back up and looked at Mr. Scott with puffy, red eyes.  “This isn’t happening, Jason.  Our daughter isn’t going to die.  This can’t be happening.  Please Jason, tell me that none of this is real; that this isn’t really happening.  Please Jason.”
         Jason said nothing as he continued staring at Dr. Bailey with a mind spinning in all different directions.  His first solid thought was to grab the doctor’s throat and choke him until he admitted to him and Sheila that everything was just a cruel joke; that Sam was perfectly all right and that they could go home and live out the rest of their lives in complete bliss.  His second thought was to just run and to never look back.  Run away from everything that he knew and love.  Run until he couldn’t run any more and wherever he would stop would be the place that he would die at.
         These thoughts quickly broke away as he heard Sheila’s cries and felt her in his arms.  As he held her close to him, he began looking pass Dr. Bailey into the hallways of the emergency ward and began noticing a smell that he hadn’t realized was there before; a smell of death.  The same smell he remembered long ago at his grandparents’ house right before they died. 
         This smell now overpowered his nose and he knew that many people had died here.  And with that thought another one quickly came to mind: one that told him that he wasn’t going to let his daughter stay here and die.  He wasn’t going to let her become part of the putrid smell that now seemed to increase by the second.
         “We’re taking her home,” he said.
         “What?!” Dr. Bailey asked.
         “We’re taking our daughter home,” he repeated.  “She’s not going to spend one more minute here.  We’re going to take her home so that when and if she dies, she’ll pass away in the safety and comfort of her home with her family near her.”
         “You can’t do that Mr.—” Dr. Bailey began.
         “I can and I will,” Jason said.  “You said yourself that she was doing fine right now.”
         “Yes I did but—”
         “And you said that what she has isn’t contagious.”
         “Yes I did say that, Mr. Scott,” Dr. Bailey said with agitation.  “but I also told you about her other symptoms.  And we don’t know what else can happen to her.  She could have another seizure at any time.  And if that happens again, you might not have enough time to bring her in.
         “Mr. Scott please listen to me.  If you take her home now before we find out what’s wrong with her then she will surely die.  At least here she has a fighting chance.”
         “Jason, what are you doing?” Sheila asked as she wiped her tears away.
         “Sheila, if we leave Sam here they are going to treat her like a circus freak.  They are not going to care for her like we can at home.  They are going to just prod her with needles until she dies in this death house.  And when that happens they are going to cut her open and treat her like she had never been human.”
         “Mrs. Scott, please listen to reason,” Dr. Bailey pleaded.  “What your husband is saying is ludicrous and truly stupid of him to make such a rash decision about your daughter’s life,” he felt shocked at his own words but he knew that if he wasn’t stern like Samantha was his own child then they would take her away and she will die in no time.
         “Samantha will receive the best of care here.  We will have doctors on hand twenty-four hours a day that will help her and all of you get through this.  You shouldn’t take her home.  She should stay here where help is easily accessible to her.”
         Sheila stared at Dr. Bailey and then turned her eyes toward Jason.  After so many years of being together she could tell from his look that he was certain about his decision and that he wasn’t going to let anybody stop him, including her.
         “My husband is right,” she said.  “If these are going to be the last days of my little Sam’s life then I agree with my husband and I don’t want her spending them in this hospital or any other.  She needs to come home where she can spend her final days with me and her father and her two brothers.”
         “Think about this, Mrs. Scott,” Dr. Bailey said in one more attempt, “if she breaks into convulsions again or something worse, you might not have the time to get her to a hospital.  If you keep her here than her last moments in life won’t be in pain.”
         “Can you guarantee us that everything you do will not cause her any more pain?” she asked with a sternness in her voice that hadn’t been there before.  “Can you honestly tell us that our daughter will feel less pain staying here than she would if she went home with us?”
         Dr. Bailey paused for a second and he knew that he had been beaten but he had no choice but to keep trying.
         “No I can’t, but—”
         “Then we are taking our daughter home,” she said, shutting Dr. Bailey up.
*        *        *        *
         Jason walked into the dark, silent house with Toby on the crook of his left arm sleeping on his shoulder.  He guided a sleepy Junior with his other hand.  He let go of Junior for a second, clicking on the switch for the light above the door that illuminated the hallway towards their room.
         In their room, he gently placed Toby in his bed and covered him up.  He knew the covers would be kicked off sometime in the middle of the night but he wanted to at least pretend that it would stay on him.  Junior, on the other hand, was magnetized to his bed and climbed in it.  He was snoring in just a matter of seconds.  Jason kissed Toby on the cheek and went over to Junior who was sprawled all over his bed.  There was no trying to get him underneath the covers, so Jason bent down and kissed him on the cheek also.  He got up and walked back to the door where he stopped and turned around.     
         “Good night little ones.  I love you.”
         He walked across the hallway to Samantha’s room.  Inside, Sheila was sitting next to a sleeping Samantha rubbing her hands through her hair.
         Jason stood at the doorway in silence thinking about how happy they were two years ago when Samantha was born.  He remembered how much they had hoped and prayed that the last child they planned on having was going to be a girl.  And when they found out that their prayers had been answered Samantha, even from the womb, brought them a joyfulness that neither of them had felt before.  They both loved their sons, but having a daughter had been what they had wanted since the decision had been made to have children.
         Now their beautiful, blond-haired, blue-eyed, perfectly tanned color little girl looked as white as a ghost with black and blue bruises all over her body.
         Both Sheila and Jason had blamed the hospital for those bruises especially since Dr. Bailey hadn’t informed them of those symptoms.  But it seemed to have happened while Dr. Bailey had been talking with them.  From a video camera that they had posted in Samantha’s room for observation purposes, they had seen the bruises suddenly appear out of no where and covered her up instantly.
         None of the doctors had a clue about what had happened to her.  And seeing this, Dr. Bailey tried to insist even more to keep Samantha there.  But the video also made the Scotts face reality that she could really die, which made them stand firmly to their decision.
         Still in the hospital, both of them had quickly realized that her physical looks weren’t the only thing that the disease had changed.  Her high energy and continuous need to talk had disappeared.  Now while she was awake, she barely even breathed hard.  She had looked at them like she didn’t know who they were.  Even when the boys finally got the courage to approach her, she never even responded to them.  This was even more unusual then her not talking because when the three of them were together they were so close that they were always deemed the three musketeers. 
         Sheila turned her head back and saw Jason standing at the door.  He woke up out of his thoughts and looked back at her.  For the first time, he realized that she had aged considerably in the last twenty-four hours since they had taken Samantha to the hospital.  Her face sagged into a permanent sad expression that he had seen before on so many older women.  Wrinkles had also formed around her face that he had never noticed before.  Even the eyes that looked back at him seemed like the same experienced eyes his grandmother had once looked at him with.
         “Jason,” she whispered to him.
         He walked over to the bed and sat next to her.  He grabbed a hold of her hands and placed them in his.
         “I know, honey,” he said.
         Both of them looked down at Sam and didn’t say anything.
         After a couple of minutes of silence, Sheila decided to voice her thoughts.
         “How—would you feel about me going to Eduardo to ask him his advice?”
         “Eduardo?” Jason asked hesitantly.  “Is that the psychic that you’ve been going to?”
         “Yes it is,” she answered.
         “You can’t be serious,” he said as he looked up into her eyes and knew the answer she was going to say.
         “I am being serious,” she said.  “Jason, I think that Eduardo can tell us something more than what the doctors have told us.  Maybe he can tell us what we need to do to save Sam.”
         He didn’t know what to say to her.  He wanted to just end the conversation but he knew that this wasn’t going to be one of those talks that she would quit at after his prolonged silence.
         “Sheila, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he replied.  “When you asked me way back when about seeing someone like this I said yes.”
         “Yes you did,” she blurted out.  “And you never disapproved of me going and seeing him.”
         Jason lifted his hands and rubbed them down his face until they joined together under his chin like he was about to say a prayer.
         “Honey, I never disapproved of you seeing him because it made you happy and there was no harm in it,” he said.  “But now it’s a different story.  You want to go there and ask his opinion about our daughter’s life?  An opinion that wouldn’t matter because anything that he tells you would mean nothing.”
         “Please, Jason.  I believe in what he tells me.  He’s told me things that have come true like he said they would.  And he’s also stopped me from doing things that would have resulted in bad consequences.  He’s not a fake like you might think.  He is the real thing.
         “I don’t believe what the doctors have told us.  There has to be something that can be done to save Sam.  There is no way that I’m going to let her die without looking into everything.”
         She gently rubbed the back of her hand on Samantha’s cheek as she continued speaking.
         “Please Jason.  There’s nothing else that we can do.  We might as well try to go into a different direction.  You never know.  Maybe there’ll be something that we can check on that we can tell the doctors about.”
         There’s nothing that your friend Eduardo can tell us that will help Samantha, he thought: a thought that he wanted to express out loud but knew wouldn’t have been the right thing to say.
         “You can go and see him, Sheila,” he said after a brief moment of silence.  “But this is only because I know how much you believe in this person.  I hope that you won’t take what he tells you as the truth, but I also hope that it will give you the satisfaction that you need in order to forget such a thing and enjoy—enjoy the little time left we might have with Sam.”
      She looked away from Samantha and looked at him with what looked like a slight smile.
         “Thank you, Jason,” she said hugging him.  “Trust me, Eduardo will know what to do.”
         Yeah right, he thought, feeling like he had just made the biggest mistake of his and his family’s life.
*        *        *        *
         In Eduardo’s kitchen, Sheila sat across from Eduardo as he held Samantha on his lap.  For the first time since they left the hospital, Samantha was awake, but she was as motionless and unresponsive as if she was still sleeping.  And now for the last ten minutes, the only movement out of Eduardo was the bouncing of his leg that Samantha sat on.
         Sheila began thinking that bringing Samantha with her wasn’t a good idea.  When she had told Jason that she was bringing her, she thought that he would freak out and change his mind about her going.  But instead he surprised her by telling her to just be careful.  Now doubts started forming in her head.
         “Please don’t doubt me,” Eduardo said with a thick Hispanic accent.  “I know you feel maybe this is a waste of time, but believe me it isn’t.  I need to feel everything that she feels.  My mind must be interlocked with hers so I can experience all her pains and discomforts.  Tis’ is the only way that I can tell you if her problem can be solved.”
         “I believe in you and I trust you,” Sheila said, embarrassed that he was able to read her mind.  “This is why I brought her here.  You are the only person that I trust to tell me the truth.”
         Eduardo shook his head in agreement as he focused his attention back on Samantha.  Soon Sheila saw his eyes close and the movements in his leg begin.  She looked up at the clock over them and it read that it was ten o’clock.
*        *        *        *
         Eduardo only saw darkness for a moment until, in the distance, a spotlight shined with something in the middle of it.  He knew, from experience, that it was Samantha.  He slowly walked in that direction, hoping that he would be able to tell what’s wrong with her just by looking at her.  He had never worked with someone so young and unlike his other callers, when he was in their mind like this, their inner self would tell him what ails them and what their futures could possibly be.
         As he got closer to the spotlight and Samantha, he noticed that she was bent over some kind of large object.  He inched his way closer, trying to get a full view of what was there.  There had never been any other thing in the spotlight except for the caller, which surprised him greatly.  When he got a step away from the edge of the light, he saw what the object was and took two steps back.
         Laying there was a nude oversized man with a pool of blood underneath him.  Samantha had her mouth on his neck gnawing at it until there was no more then a strip of skin left on the side.  She looked up at Eduardo with a face covered in blood and a grin showing a mouth filled with fangs.  All the black and blue bruises had disappeared and her skin had returned to its original tan color.  Her curly, blond hair had reappeared with not even a strand of grayness left.  She stared back at Eduardo only for a moment before she went back to work on the guy’s neck.  Soon she had severed it completely and it rolled out of the light and Eduardo felt it hit his feet.  He jumped back and heard a menacing laugh coming from her before she opened her mouth wide and placed it on the man’s chest.  He watched her as she slowly closed her mouth over it.  He then heard the tearing sound of the man’s flesh as she ripped it away. 
         Eduardo turned around from the sight of her and looked for the light that would lead him back to his kitchen.  He saw it not too far away and rushed towards it.  At that same time he heard something behind him, chasing him.  He looked behind him and was only able to see the man’s body in the light.  Even though it had never happened before, he knew that some how Samantha was after him.  He kicked his speed up a notch and when he reached the light he turned around to see Samantha lunging, mouth wide open, at him.
         Eduardo opened his eyes with a start and nearly dropped Samantha out of his lap.  He quickly grabbed a hold of her and looked over at Sheila who was looking at him like she was about to go into hysterics.
         “How long was I out?” he asked.
         “It’s eleven O’ five,” she said.  “You’ve been under for over an hour.  I was getting ready to take Samantha out of your arms to cut your connection with her because you weren’t responding even to my shouts.  What did you see?”
         Eduardo took a deep breath and thought about the things he saw.  To a novice, none of it would’ve made sense, but to a veteran like himself, he knew exactly what it meant.
         “What the doctors have told you is all true,” he said.
         “What?!” she said.  “Are you telling me also that she is going to die?”
         “Yes she is going to die,” he replied.  “But unlike the doctors, I’ve discovered a way for her to stay alive.”
         “What is it?” Sheila asked frantically.
         “Her disease requires her to feed on other human beings,” he answered.  “This is the only way that she can remain alive.  If she doesn’t feed on others then she will surely die very soon.”
         “What are you talking about?” Sheila asked.  “Are you telling me that my daughter is a vampire?”
         “No, she is more than that,” he said.  “Vampires need to feed on only the blood of its victims.  Your daughter needs to feed on every part of the human body, both inside and out.  Only this will guarantee her a long life.”
         “I can’t believe that I actually believed in you,” she said as she stood up and grabbed Samantha away from him.  “Jason was right.  You are nothing but a fake.”
         “Sheila, when I looked inside Sam, I saw her one step away from being the devil’s daughter.  She has been forced into an evil that she has no control of, which is why I’m telling you what needs to be done to save her.  I can’t tell you what you can or can’t do because that is all up to you.  I can, however, give you the answer that you seek.  And that answer is that you will have to kill in order for your daughter to live.”
         “I can’t do that,” she said.
         “Then Sam will die.”
         Sheila said nothing else as she walked out the kitchen and out the front door.
*        *        *        *
         “You have to be kidding me?” Jason said after Sheila had told him what Eduardo had told her.  “Where did you find this guy?  He actually told you that our daughter is a vampire?”
         “He didn’t say that she was a vampire,” Sheila corrected him.
         “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said.  “He actually told you that our daughter is a cannibal?
         “Sheila, how can you believe such a quack for so long?”
After a short pause, Jason continued talking, dropping his voice to a near whisper.
“Listen to me, the doctor called today while you were gone.  They got Sam’s results back.”  He grabbed a hold of her shoulders as he saw her face change into horror.  “Her disease is something that has never been recorded before.  It has no relation to anything that they predicted it to be.  They can’t tell us anything except that she—won’t—survive—past next month.”
“Jason, no!” she shrieked, dropping to the floor and instantly in tears.
She placed her hands over her face and a myriad of thoughts went through her mind: thoughts that were not only filled with the past two years since Samantha was born but thoughts about the future that the two of them would never have the chance to share.  Suddenly thoughts about what Eduardo had told her entered her mind.  Is what he said possible?  Can she actually kill another human being to save her daughter?  Would it work or would she be sealing her own life and the little amount of time that she had left to spend with Samantha?
Jason removed Sheila’s hands and kneeled down to her level.  He looked into her eyes and saw a crazed look in them that told him what she was thinking.
“No, Sheila,” he said.  “Don’t start to believe such a thing.  Eduardo is nothing but a fake that has wasted your time and money over the years.  He should be arrested for telling you such ridiculous lies.  Taking the life of someone else won’t save our Sam’s life.  It will only bring more horror to our lives.  Nothing we do can save Sam.  She is going to leave us and there is nothing we can do for her except make her remaining time the best that we can.
“Please, Sheila, promise me that you won’t listen to what Eduardo told you.  And please, please promise me that you won’t go and see him anymore.”
She stared through Jason and looked at Samantha motionless in her crib: a crib that they had stopped using because of Samantha constantly climbing out of it.  Now all that has changed and she barely even lifted a finger. 
She didn’t want to believe it but she knew that Jason was right and there was nothing that she or anyone else could do to save her little girl.  Her daughter was going to die along with the happiness that she brought them.  She thought about these things and decided to fess up to the realization.
“I promise,” she whispered back to Jason.
*        *        *          *
         Sheila looked over the crib at Samantha who had suddenly started crying.  This was the first time she had made any sound more than a peep since they had brought her home from the hospital two weeks ago.  Now she shrilled like she was finally feeling great pain from all the black and blue bruises that now covered over ninety-nine percent of her albino body.  Sheila lifted up her weightless body trying to console her, but Samantha continued her ear piercing screams. 
         I can’t take this anymore, she thought.  I have to see if what Eduardo told me is true.  There’s nothing else for me to try.  I can tell by her cries that she doesn’t have long to live.  She can possibly die in my arms right now.  I can’t let that happen without at least trying.  It might not work but at least I’ve tried.  If I get caught and I go to jail then at least I will know that I tried to save my little Sam’s life.
*        *        *        *
         “Hi, can I buy you a drink?” a guy said as he sat down next to Sheila.
         Sheila looked him over and could instantly tell that he was much older than she was.  The most obvious sign was his gray, lip-covering mustache that didn’t match the dark brown hair on his oval head.  His clothes looked like he was still stuck in the eighties with his blue long-sleeved jean shirt and his faded blue jeans.  She noticed that he was also wearing running shoes which would explain for the decent shape of his body.  She looked back up at his eyes and could tell that he was not use to picking up women at a bar.  He probably just came out of a long marriage and decided to try and enter the dating world again.  Sheila knew that anything positive she told him would spark a smile on his face and she was going to use that to her advantage.
         This guy will definitely do, she thought.
         “Yeah sure,” she said.  “But only if you have one with me.  I’m having a shot of Jameson.”
         The guy smiled as he sat back in his chair.
         “Can I get two shots of Jameson, please” he said as the bartender walked up to them.  “My name is Byron,” he placed his hand out and Sheila gently shook it.
         “My name is Sheila,” she said.  “I’m very glad to meet you, Byron.”
         The bartender placed the shots in front of them and walked away.  Sheila grabbed her shot and slammed it down.  Byron had a surprised look on his face, but he quickly followed her example.
         “Wow, definitely my kind of lady,” he said, placing his hand over his mouth trying to hide his cough.
         “Look, Byron, I’m really not into the bar thing very much.  If you are up for it, I would love for you to take me back to my house and we can get to know each other much better than we would here.”
         Byron looked at her with that surprised look.  “Are you serious?”
         “Only if you’re serious about wanting to get to know me,” she said smiling.
         Byron smiled back at her as he reached in his pocket and threw a twenty on the bar.  Sheila stood up with him and grabbed him by the hand and led him outside. 
         “Is it all right that we take your car and then you can drive me back here later so that I can pick up my car?” she asked.
         “Yeah, that’s not a problem,” he said as they walked over to a blue Sierra.
         He opened the door for her and she stepped in.  When he got in the other side, she slid next to him and when he looked at her she moved her lips towards his and began kissing him.  It took him aback for a second, but he was quickly kissing her back.
         After a minute, she broke away from him and moved back to her seat.  Byron, with a big smile, faced the front and started up the truck.
         “So where are you from?” he asked after they pulled away.
         “Byron, I don’t mean to sound like a bitch but I would rather not have you know anything about me and vice versa.  My life is at a low point right now and I believe that doing something like this will help me not only physically but also mentally.  I just think that things will get complicated if we knew anything about the other.  I hope that you won’t let this change your mind.”
         Byron said nothing for a minute as he thought about what Sheila said.
         “No I don’t want to change my mind.  I understand where you’re coming from and I am willing to follow your rules.”
         “Thank you,” she said.
         As they drove, the only time either of them spoke was when Sheila gave directions.  In between these times, Sheila’s thoughts constantly kept questioning about her plans.  Would she be able to kill another human being?  Would she be strong enough to pull the trigger when the time came?  After he’s dead, would she be able to place her innocent Samantha in front of the bleeding body?  And would her strength continue when she discovers that Eduardo was wrong?
         When they turned a corner and she saw her house in the distance, all her questionable thoughts diminished.  She was about to point towards it, but she hesitated for a second.  In that second, she felt that she couldn’t do it.  There was no way that she could take Byron’s life.  He could have a family just like hers.  He could have sons and daughters that he loves unconditionally and who he would give his life for without a second thought.  He could have a daughter that is extremely sick and who he would do anything to help cure her: even if it meant killing another person.
         She pointed to the gravel covered driveway in front of her house.
         “We’re here,” she said, looking at it like it was not hers.
         Byron turned into the driveway and turned facing Sheila who looked extremely nervous.
         “Are you sure you’re up for this?” he asked.
         Sheila reached across the middle console and pulled him closer to her.  This time Byron’s reaction to her kiss was much faster than before and he kissed her unlike anyone he had kissed in a long time.  Afterwards she gently pulled back and smiled at him, making Byron’s worries dissipate.
         Turning the truck off and hopping out, he quickly rushed over to her side and opened her door with his hand extended out.  She grabbed a hold of it and he helped her out.  Still holding on to his hand, she led him to the front door.
         Inside, he closed the door and she instantly turned around and pressed her body firmly on him.  She placed her lips close to his and gently bit down on his lower lip.
         “Follow me,” she whispered.
         Byron felt excited all over as he followed her through the hallway, not paying attention to anything but her rear end.
         When they turned into one of the rooms, he quickly noticed a crib next to the bed.  She has a kid, he thought, and with this size of house, she must be married too.  What have I gotten myself into?  Aw, fuck it.  She’s the one that picked me up.
         “Lay down on the bed,” she said in his ear.
         “Don’t you want me to take off my clothes?” he asked.
         “No I want to do that for you,” she said softly.
         This is going to be great, he thought.
         As he sat down on the cushy bed, she went down on her knees and pulled off his shoes.  He felt her massaging his feet and suddenly he felt like doing nothing but lying down and enjoying the sensations she was causing.  He grabbed a pillow and placed it underneath his head and closed his eyes.  After a minute he felt her stop and straddle across his midsection.  He opened his eyes but instead of seeing her, he saw the barrel of a gun pointing at him.
         “What the—”  Before he had a chance to say anything else, she pulled the trigger and the top of his head exploded all over the bed and her.
         “What the hell are you doing?!” Jason screamed from the doorway.  “No, Sheila, you didn’t!”
         Sheila turned around in shock and stared at Jason with blood dripping down her face.
         “Jason what are you doing here?”
         Jason walked into the room and closed the door.  He slowly walked up to Sheila who was still straddling Byron with the gun in her hand.
         “No, Sheila, you didn’t.  How could you have done such a thing?”
         “I did it so that we can save Sam,” she said as she got up.  “This is the only way that we can save her, and I wasn’t going to let her die without us at least trying.”
         “This is murder, Sheila.  Don’t you realize what you’ve done?  You killed an innocent man because of what your crackpot psychic told you. 
         “Our daughter is not a cannibal.  She has a disease and killing this person won’t help her, it’ll just destroy our family even more.  Do you understand me?”
         “Jason, this has got to work.  I believe—” she was cut off by a tapping on the door.
         “Oh no the kids!” Jason said, walking over to the door.  “After I heard the gun, I left them in the living room and came rushing in here.”
         He opened the door a crack and looked down to see Samantha glaring up at him with a look of hunger that he had never seen in her before.  She was salivating like a dog showing a multitude of sharp teeth that hadn’t been there when he brought her into the house a few minutes ago.
         The only thing Jason was able to say was, “Oh my god.”
         “What’s wrong?” Sheila asked as she inched towards the door.  She placed her fingers through the crack and opened it a bit wider.  When she looked down she saw Samantha staring back at her with that same craving look that she had back when she had been breastfeeding her.
         “Open the door,” she said to Jason.  “She’s hungry.”
         “No Sheila!  Our daughter is not a cannibal.”
         As if in response to his commit, Samantha tried pushing the door open with her head.
         “She can smell him, Jason.  Let her in so that she can eat.”
         Jason looked at Sheila then back at Samantha who continued to push at the door, trying to get in.
         “Honey, please,” Sheila said as she grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the door.
         Immediately the door pushed open and Samantha came crawling slowly into the room.  Both of them watched her as she crawled to the edge of the bed where Byron’s legs hung down.  She looked up and grabbed a hold of his pants and pulled herself up into a standing position.  As she stood there, she looked back at Jason and Sheila as if she was silently asking them for something.  Sheila closed the room door and walked over to Samantha.  She lifted her up and placed her near Byron’s chest.
         Jason watched in horror as Samantha opened her mouth widely, showing more teeth than he had seen before.  She placed her mouth above Byron’s heart and closed down on his chest.  Jason heard the ripping of his flesh as she lifted her head back up.  He saw a big hole where she had bitten into and he turned his head and threw up all his lunch.  When he turned his head back, she had Byron’s heart in her hands and she was chewing it up like it was an apple.
         Sheila sat next to her rubbing her now blood-filled hair.
         “See Jason, I told you that it would work,” she said.  “Look at her, the bruises are going away and her true color is coming back.”
         Jason realized that Sheila was right.  Even through the blood, he saw her bruises disappearing and color returning to her body.  It seemed that the more she ate, the more her body returned to its pre-diseased self.
He stood at the door, motionless, watching Samantha devour Byron while Sheila encouraged her on. 
After Samantha had finished digging out and eating Byron’s kidneys, stomach and liver she stopped.
Jason saw a smile on her face that he hadn’t seen for a long time, and he slowly smiled back.  Aside from the blood covering her entire body, she looked like the little girl he had grown to love and adore.  He walked over to her and opened his arms.
“Daddy,” Samantha said as she jumped into his arms.
“Oh, Sammy, you’re all right,” he said with tears rolling down his cheek.
Sheila got up and hugged the two, sandwiching Samantha.
“I love you mommy and daddy,” Samantha said.
“We love you too, Sammy,” Jason said.
“Now we can be a happy family again,” Sheila said.
*        *        *        *
         Samantha ate the new meat, glad that for her fifth birthday they had gotten her someone younger.  Even though she didn’t mind it, sometimes old meat was too tough for her to enjoy even after it was cooked up.
         “Happy Birthday, Little Sammy,” they both said as they walked downstairs to the basement where she now did her feeding.
         “Mommy, Daddy!” she screamed as she ran up to them.  “Thank you so much for my gifts and for my meal.  I love everything.  I love you guys so so much.”
         “You are so welcome little one,” Sheila said.  “You know that we would do anything to make you happy.  Anything at all.”