I shrugged my shoulder and thought for a moment. “Maybe, or maybe not. Why would you have all that gold, anyway?”
“I wanted Josiah to be happy.”
“My great-great-great uncle?”
“Something like that. You know his name?”
“Uh, not really. That’s way too long ago for me to have ever known him.”
“Do you not know your family’s history?” he asked and lifted his lip in revulsion.
“What? It’s not really a thing. At least it’s not for me. Grandpa told us stories, but I never cared much about the ones concerning family relationships and distant cousins.”
He inhaled and let out a long sigh. “You said your family still owns the farm?”
“Yes, but no one lives there. They still farm it, but my parents live in a house on part of the land that’s closer to town now.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, he was off. But this time I knew where he was headed, and I had a feeling he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.
“Blake, where’d he go?” Aaron asked from the living room when I walked inside the house.
“I think he went to the farm.”
“You just let him go?” Aaron asked and stood up, still holding the game controller.
“It’s not like he can go too far. The sun will be up, eventually.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes and shook his finger at me. “Good thinking, he’ll need somewhere to stay.”
“Yep.” I just wasn’t sure I wanted that to be in my house.
The two of us spent the next hour snacking on whatever we could find in the kitchen, which wasn’t much, and talking about the events of the evening.
“Do you really think he’ll come back?” Aaron finally asked.
“Unless he’s willing to go back into his grave. The old farmhouse doesn’t have a basement, and all the rooms have windows. Seems he’d rather come here where we have a nice safe basement than take his chances trying to find somewhere else.”
“Maybe, or maybe he doesn’t really want to share his gold,” Aaron said.
I looked outside and noticed the sky was at that in between time, where the sun was getting ready to rise but still had yet to chase away the dark. “Shit, I’ll be back.” I ran out to my truck and gunned the engine as soon as it started. “Stupid fuckingvampire,” I grumbled as I hurried through town and was thankful it was still early for too many farmers to be out and about.
I turned off the paved road and onto the dirt road that led to the old farmhouse, sliding as I sped up. The farmhouse remained unchanged and unimproved since its construction. There was still an old screened-in porch on the front and back of the square house. The roof was built high and at a steep angle that must have been the style of the time.
There on the wooden steps sat Marlon, looking toward the rising sun. “Hey, you stupid asshole. Are you trying to burn up?”
He looked in my direction and the look on his face told me he hadn’t even noticed I was there. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Trying to save your sorry ass. Now get in the truck.” I reached across the seat and opened the door. He sat there a moment more before he looked up at the horizon, then back to where I sat hoping I wasn’t about to witness him burst into flames.
“I think I’ll just stay here.” He made no move to get up, and once again looked toward the horizon and I wondered if he really wanted to be reduced to ash at any moment, as I imagined he would have been.
“Marlon, get your ass in the truck!” I yelled, and that time he got up and leaned into the rolled down window.
“Why do you even pretend to care? If I’m no more, it’s one less monster in the night.” There was an edge to his voice that told me he didn’t really want to die, but he had no hope left.
“I have no fucking clue. But I’m not willing to sit here and let you die. Get in the truck and you can stay at my house. I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I would really like to help you.”
“You hate me,” he said with no malice in his voice.
“No, that’s not true. I don’t know you. And it’s not every day you meet some guy who’s been buried as long as you have and is still kicking. But I would like to help, and I want to know more about how you ended up there.”
