Blanket of Fear

“Mattie! You’re home!”

A twenty-two-year-old Zachary Baker called to his older brother excitedly as he ran out of the cozy two-bedroom cabin that their father had built when they’d moved West. His brother pulled his horse to a stop beside the hitching post and dismounted off of the animal, not even giving his younger brother a smile as he did so. Zachary frowned, unsure of why his brother would look so somber when he’d just arrived home. It had been four long years since he’d seen the older man; four years in which he’d grown a lot.

“Where are Mother and Father?” Matthew asked him, looking down at his little brother, an obvious insincere smile on his face as he ruffled the younger sibling’s black hair. It was a routine action; before whenever he’d left, when he came home he would always ruffle Zachary’s hair. This time, however, it seemed to be just that. Routine. Something was off about his older brother, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“Mother is at the neighbor’s house, and Father’s in town. Neither of them will be back until tonight for supper,” Zachary told him, a frown on his face. “Why do you look so angry, Mattie?”

“It’s nothing,” came the harsh reply before he sighed, meeting the gaze of his youngest sibling again. “And Zina?”

“She went with Mother. I was supposed to stay here and wait for you,” Zachary told his older brother, proud of the fact.

Matthew only nodded before he went inside the house, leaving the horse hitched to the post rather than unsaddling him and putting him in the corral with the other horses as Zachary had expected he would do.

-x-

Later that night, after their parents had welcomed him home with open arms and teary eyes, and Zina had told him about her newest pet cat, everyone retired to bed. Zina shared the bedroom with her parents and slept on the pullout straw mattress underneath of their bed, while Zachary and Matthew shared the second bedroom. Zachary crawled into his half of the mattress and fell asleep quickly; he’d had a much more exciting day than he was used to, with the arrival of his older brother and then worrying about his newfound attitude all day. He didn’t notice when Matthew got out of the bed when he was sure his younger brother was asleep, and he didn’t notice the bedroom door open, leaving Zachary alone in the small bedroom.

He only woke up when he heard horrified screams coming from his parents’ bedroom, his sister’s cries the loudest and his mother’s screams the sharpest as he threw the blankets off of his body and ran down the hallway to the bedroom. What he saw would forever be burned into his mind.

His older brother’s mouth was attacking Zina’s neck, one hand holding their mother’s so that she couldn’t move. Their father was already dead, his body covered in blood and two gaping wounds in his neck.

Matthew saw Zachary walk into the room and simply dismissed the younger boy, going back to attacking his sister’s neck with his mouth. Seconds later, her body went limp and the last breath of life left her pale lips, her eyes wide open with fear and pain as she passed into the afterlife. Before Matthew attacked his mother, he snapped her neck simply, killing her immediately before he did the same thing he’d done to his sister and father before he let her body slump to the ground.

Zachary was petrified. He couldn’t move; couldn’t blink. He was in shock. His mother…His father…His sister…they were all dead, and all of them by his older brother’s hand. And he’d done nothing to stop it; nothing to protect them. He could have grabbed the gun. He could have—

“Zack,” a feminine voice called to him. It sounded faintly familiar, but he was too deep into the nightmare to realize where he’d heard it before.

Matthew began taking slow, deliberate steps towards his younger brother’s body, ripping open his own arm with his teeth before shoving Zachary up against the wall, forcing the bloodied wound to his mouth.

“Zack, wake up,” the soft voice said again though the nightmare continued playing over and over in his mind. “Zack, c’mon, wake up. Wake up…”

“Zack, it’s just a bad dream. Wake up,” Eliza said quietly to him, brushing his sweat-soaked black hair out from his closed eyes, the green eyeballs behind them shifting back and forth furiously, his entire body drenched in the sweat his hair was wet with, shaking furiously as he tossed back and forth on the mattress.

Eliza was becoming worried with each second that he didn’t wake up. He seemed trapped in whatever nightmare he was dreaming, and he was far more scared-looking than she’d ever seen him when he was awake. She’d never known him to have nightmares before, and just that alone scared her.

“Zack, please,” she said softly, leaning her head down and brushing her lips against his cheek before next moving her lips to press them softly against his lips, hoping that would wake him up.

“Ma-Ma-Matthew, why?” He murmured in his sleep, his voice unlike anything she’d ever heard him speak before. “Why-Why Mother and Fa-Father and Zina?”

Eliza didn’t know what to do. Nothing she did was working. He wasn’t any closer to waking up from this nightmare, and she was terrified to hear him sounding so scared and helpless.

“Zack, please wake up,” she whispered, pulling him so that his head was on her lap, her arms secured around his shaking body as she held him, trying to wake him up and comfort him as best as she could. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

She didn’t know who Matthew was, but from what Jimmy had told her earlier, she was assuming that he was reliving the night his family had been murdered; the night he’d been turned into a vampire. Which meant that Matthew was most likely his older brother.

“Wha-What are you do-doing to me?” He whimpered, his voice sounded broken as he tossed his head back and forth on her lap. “Ma-Mattie, stop!”

“Zack, I’m not going to hurt you,” she soothed, knowing that he couldn’t hear her but feeling like she needed to say something; anything, that might calm him down. She leaned down to press another kiss to his forehead. He let out a horrible, gut-wrenching scream that caused tears to start pricking the corners of Eliza’s eyes.

And then, he stopped. Zack’s body went still, his chest beating up and down erratically as he lay on her lap, the sweat starting to dissipate, his breath coming out in ragged gasps before his green eyes opened, looking up at her.

“Eliza?” He whispered to her, his voice hoarse from the nightmare. She didn’t say anything as he sat up and pulled her against his chest, comforting her this time. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and he rested his head on top of hers, rocking her back and forth slowly on the mattress.

“You were so sca-scared, and I couldn’t wake you up and then-then you started screaming.” She whispered against his chest. It seemed that now, she was more affected by his nightmare than he seemed to be. She had never seen him that vulnerable before; that scared, and it terrified her.

“I’m okay,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m here, and it was just a dream. Okay? Everyone has nightmares, Eliza. Even vampires.”

She couldn’t form a reply with her voice, the words stuck in her throat as she clutched tightly to him, afraid to let him go. He sighed as he comforted her. He didn’t like seeing her like this. He liked the strong Eliza; the Eliza who showed no fear. This wasn’t that girl. This was the girl she had been hiding; the fearful one, the one who was still scared even though she refused to show it. This girl was so completely dependant on him that she had started cracking when he showed vulnerability.

And that thought scared him more than the nightmare had.