Chapter 2: A fear of pointy sticks and a father’s drunken rage
As Tye and Olivia walked towards the carriage Tye began to worry about supplies for the long trip. When he asked Olivia about it she said, "Don't worry, we'll find wild animals along the way."
"That sounds dangerous and very unpredictable, what if we don't see any animals, what about water, what if…"
"Fine if it will stop your endless yammering, you can go pick us up some supplies from your lair."
"My what?" Tye asked her confused.
"I meant… your… your dwelling, you know where you live," Olivia tried to correct herself uncomfortably.
Tye stared at her with a look of confusion and fear. Not because of her wording, but because of his father. If his father found out Tye was stealing the carriage he would surely beat him, and that's only if his father was sober. Tye feared for his life thinking about what would happen if his father was drunk.
Olivia began to shift uncomfortably from his staring, "What is it?"
Hearing this broke the frozen young lad out of his self imposed trance. "Nothing!" he announced with a start, "I was just thinking about what I should bring with us on our journey."
"Ok then, you go pick up those supplies while I head towards the carriage, I believe I know which direction to go now." After a few minutes of walking Tye broke away from his new companion to head towards the house, which it seemed, he could never call home.
"Welcome back Tye," he announced to himself as he grabbed the handle to the worn-down front door of the house. Tye tugged on the handle, only to find that the door was stuck. Having made this realization he began to tug with all his might. After three pulls he managed to thrust the door open, upon doing so an overwhelming stench of alcohol wafted into Tye's face.
Most people would have at least gagged when confronted with this nasal assault, however, he had smelt this stench since the day he arrived at the farm and was now used to it. He walked into the pigsty of a house without hesitation.
As Tye walked in he noticed that his father wasn't there. While he was slightly humored by this due to his relieved stress, he grew tenser when he realized that his father could arrive unannounced at any given moment.
As he walked towards his room, and the only clean spot in the house. He heard a clanging sound behind him which seemed to originate from the disaster his father called a kitchen.
Startled, Tye ran for his room and hid behind the side of its open doorway.
He peeked over the doorway expecting to see an angry, drunken father, but instead what he saw was his cat, Hawk. Hawk was a wild cat that Tye had taken in, after finding it beaten by his father in the melon patch. He had yellow fur with brown line patterns on it, he also had one green eye and one dark blue eye.
"What's wrong with you, I almost killed you with my bare hands," Tye joked awkwardly to the cat as he came out of hiding. Passing by the cat Tye began to rummage through the cupboards of his father's kitchen grabbing some apples, a waterskin full of water, three tomatoes, his favorite steak knife, and a bit of the meat which his father cooked and seasoned himself.
Tye would never admit it but he truly loved that meat, it was one of the only things he liked about his father. Finally, Tye grabbed his father's last three bottles of wine. While one of them was for necessity, the other two were more for his amusement thinking of the look on his father's face. He placed all of the supplies into a large bag that his father had given him to help with picking the farms produce.
"Hawk, you coming?" He asked his cat while standing in the doorway. As he stood looking at the cat it stood up from its resting position in the kitchen and ran out of the disgusting house, quicker than Tye had ever seen the cat move. As if he was saying "I am, are you?"
As Tye looked into the house which he could never truly live in, he thought of all the memories he had created in it. He thought of all the bad memories and all of the good. He thought of his father beating him in the living, and his father cooking his special meat for him in the kitchen as he finished his trip down memory lane. He couldn't help but think, How can you hate a place so much and still have a hard time leaving it behind.
After what felt like hours had passed of looking into that horrible house, Hawk rubbed against Tye's leg urging him to close the door, "Goodbye, father."
He pulled the door closed and looked down at Hawk, "Looks like we're finally leaving this nightmare and living the dream old friend."
"What do you mean 'leaving this nightmare?'" said a gruff and almost solemn voice, a voice that Tye knew all too well, a voice that had brought him fear and uncertainty for the last few years. His father's voice.
Tye turned around anxiously to the sight of a six-foot-two, shaggy man holding a bottle of cheap booze. The bottle was near to empty, and from his father's wobbling stance, Tye knew he was already drunk. He saw his father's squinted eyes glace at the bag filled to the brim with supplies, then glance back at his face.
"And where might yous be goin' lad, I don't figure you're leaving our lovely little home, are you?"
"Of course not, I'm just going for a ride in the carriage."
"Oh… I see… I see," he said rubbing his chin, "and who's carriage would you be taking on this little ride."
"Your carriage, Father. But…"
"Oh, my carriage! Of course, of course," he said taking three steps towards his son, as a result, Tye tried to take a step back but only hit the door with his heel, his drunken father still advancing until they were only about two steps away from each other. Tye began to shrink in the shadow of this beast of a man, and just as he began to think that maybe his father would just walk past him and through the door the monster of a man began to lean in.
He stopped leaning only inches away from his son's face, so close that Tye could barely stand the smell of alcohol and strangely, blood, probably from a recent bar fight.
"And where are you planning on taking the only carriage this farm owns? the only carriage I own!" He yelled into Tye's face managing to catapult a bit of saliva onto Tye's chin.
"To Dastin sir," Tye responded to his father, trying to avert his gaze from the glistening anger in his father's eyes, but to no avail. The fury pulled him in like a fish on a hook.
"And why, in the name of Kral, were you planning to go to Dastin, Boy!"
"My name isn't Boy," Tye whispered sharply.
"What did you say, Boy!"
"I said," Tye began calmly then began to raise his voice, "my name isn't Boy." He quickly kneed his father in the groin. Seeing his father drop to the floor moaning, confused with how he was able to cause someone he feared so much, so much pain.
Suddenly, he was brought back to the real world by the feeling of Hawk's rough, rugged fur against his leg. Having been brought to the real world he looked at his cat and began running towards the carriage stall. All the time wondering if his father was following, and sometimes if it was a dream.
Was he really running toward his freedom, was he really running towards a life that was better than this. There was one only one way to find out, just keep running. And he did until he tripped over a rotting log and rolled down a hill.
When he woke the sun had begun to rise. He realized Hawk was laying on his chest and that he had landed in a ditch at the bottom of the hill.
"Why didn't you wake me up," he yelled at the cat. He stood up and grabbed his supplies, which had landed a few feet away from him only slightly crushed, and ran for the carriage stall, reaching them fairly quickly due to his fear that Olivia had left without him.
Luckily, Tye saw that the carriage had not been moved from the stall. Unluckily, Tye also saw his father standing in front of the stall. He began to slow down and develop a frown as he approached, until, eventually, he stopped only a few feet away from his father. Tye began to feel something at the sight of his father, however, it was not fear or anger like it usually was, instead, strangely he felt what can only be described as amusement.
"How are the boys down below feeling?" Tye joked with a smile, and confidence that he had never felt before.
"How about you wipe that grin off your face before I do," his father snapped, "or maybe it would be better if we stake your little vampire pet."
"What do you mean vampire pet?" Tye laughed at what seemed to him was a hysterical joke. Until two of his father's drinking buddies emerged from behind the stall. One was holding Olivia and the other held a sharpened wooden stick pointed at her chest. "What's going on here?"
"What, don't tell me you haven't noticed the color of her eyes."
"What about her eyes, they're beautiful."
"Beautiful, did you learn nothing from your little childhood trip across the land, Boy. Those are the eyes of a demon." Tye's father kept his son's gaze while pointing at Olivia.
"You're insane, she couldn't possibly be a vampire, they can't leave the forest."
"And you believe those rumors, I thought you were at least smart enough to think for yourself, then again…"
Tye ignored the backhanded compliment, he was too busy trying to comprehend what he had just learned when he noticed something strange. The goon with the stake and Olivia were staring into each other's eyes intensely. At first, this sight only made Tye uncomfortable, but he soon realized that something strange was transpiring when the goon began to turn his stake towards the man holding Olivia.
"Gerald, what are you doing," the goon holding Olivia said in a trembling voice drawing Tye's father's attention. "Terry he's looking at me funny," the scarred man looked back and forth between Tye's father, Olivia, and Gerald until Gerald lunged at the scarred man. Out of instinct, the trembling man threw Olivia to the side and reached to stop Gerald's stake from reaching him, but it was already too late. As Olivia hit the ground, Gerald pounced on the man like Hawk when he had found a rat.
The stake dove into the man's neck like a knife cutting butter, it happened in a flash. The scarred man flailed his arms around until, eventually, he didn't have any strength left, he lay there lifeless on the ground with a stake in his neck and a large man on top of him.
Gerald began to raise from the lifeless corpse until he was standing tall, doused in blood. He looked off onto the rising horizon. Some may have thought that he was thinking about what he had just done, but Tye knew otherwise, he had heard the rumors, he knew what Gerald was doing. He was checking the height of the sun to find out how long he had until his master would burn from the light. His new master, Olivia.
"You disgusting monster!" his father began to rush Olivia who was now walking towards the carriage quite confidently, however within only a few of his father's steps Olivia had reached him and had begun holding him in the air by his neck. His father struggled in the air but to no avail. Suddenly, Olivia snapped her head towards Tye and smiled. Then she lowered his father just enough for him to stand firmly and breathe.
"Do you think I'm a monster too, Tye Jones?" she asked looking into his eyes. Fury gleaming behind the beautiful scarlet tint. That fury almost forced him to lie and say he didn't but he couldn't, not with those eyes looking into his soul.
"That depends," he began his reply, "do you regret forcing that man to kill one of his best friends?" Tye nodded his head towards the man staring at the ever-closer horizon.
Olivia's face hardened, it was no longer that of a young woman's, it was now the face of a woman who had seen life and taken it with pleasure. "No, I don't, and he would have done the same if he could, he…"
"That's where you're wrong, that man couldn't even curse at my cat after it pissed on his pant leg. If you believe that everyone wants to kill you, you're truly a monter."
If only for a moment Olivia's face was filled with a mix of emotions, until, finally, Her face settled on a grin. "True," she began saying in an elegant manner, "I am quite the monster, however I am not the one who is about to kill his own father, now am I?"
"Wait, you wouldn't...." It was too late Olivia had already begun the conquest of his mind.
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