They stayed in Jonathon's suite. He and Marla in the master bedroom, and Wilmot and Gail in the guest; no sex, although an audible slap could be heard from behind the closed door just before Wilmot shouted a sharp "ouch!" After that, total silence. The sun on its way up could not penetrate the thick light-blocking curtains Jonathon put in place earlier. They were all tired and a little drunk. None of them felt like crawling into a coffin bag. They spent the night reminiscing over old times, old tales, and old haunts. Jonathon informed them he was able to take a small amount of sunshine now, without pain or blistering. He still peeled a little at times, but nothing unbearable. He started rising at about 7:00 in the evening every day now. He was the oldest of the quad at 914 years, although he carried no aspirations for leadership over the group. They each controlled their own areas of the world and didn't usually trespass one upon the other; every twenty to fifty years they would get together and have these little "family" reunions.
They always invited the others, but it usually came down to the four of them.
"I don't even know why we try with those old bones," Gail said during dinner. "Maxwell has become a hermit and never leaves the Midwest, Daniela refuses to answer my e-mails, and I'm not sure Kane is even with us anymore."
"Did you feel it too?" Marla asked suddenly. "About five years ago, something changed within the family."
"No. I didn't feel anything." Wilmot said.
"I felt it." Jonathon said flatly. "I wasn't sure if I imagined it or not."
"Yes, I tried to contact her, the last I heard she was traveling Brazil, looking for a new haunt." Gail went on. "Maybe we should try to find out. She is our elder."
"Why should we care about any of those geezers. They could care less about us."
"You always were an ungrateful bastard, Wilmot. Kane gave birth to you! Out of all of us you should care most about her well being."
"I tried my best to show my gratitude to her over two hundred years ago. She treated me like her bastard son or something."
"Well you are!" Jonathon, Gail, and Marla said in unison. Even Wilmot, obviously a little hurt, had to laugh with them.
"True, but that doesn't mean she has to treat me as such. Look at us, there are only seven of us left and we are the only ones who attempt to stay in touch."
They drank another bottle of wine and decide to walk back to the hotel, enjoying the breeze blowing off the ocean. Jonathon was glad to play host for the event, to be in the company of his own kind again. He hadn't seen any of them since the last reunion, in London. He talked about all the changes to San Francisco, reminding them how the city still has a high percentage of HIV positives and he suggests they not feed in the city proper, unless they know the signs to look for.
"I still think it was created to exterminate us," Wilmot remarked as he held hands with Marla.
"I don't," Jonathon responded. "There were just fifty of us back then. It was just an unfortunate side effect of the disease. Collateral damage, if you will. Why kill off millions of humans, just to exterminate a handful of vampires?"
"They didn't know only a handful of us existed. Hollywood portrayed us as having covens all over the planet, in every major city, and breeding like rabbits. It was that paranoia that did us in, I tell you."
"Perhaps there is some truth to what you say, Wilmot." Jonathon comments. "Those were strange times when AIDS was at its peak; anything is possible."
"I just don't think humans are that clever," Gail disagreed.
The four creatures in human form reached the hotel and took the elevator up to Jonathon's suite. They could have all fit easily into his home on the ocean, but he didn't want to create any suspicion within his neighborhood association, so he rented the two bedroom suite for five days.
At 12:15 the earthquake began. The first jolts rattled the ground under the hotel and seemed to twist and bend the building like a sponge being rung dry. Jonathon jumped up first, the small streaks of sunlight breaking through the moving curtains irritating his eyes.
"Get to the coffin bags!" He shouts at Marla, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her to her feet. Immediately awake, she runs into the living room where they the coffin bags were.
Wilmot, already there, tries to unpack the new bags. He got them out of the UPS box, but was having trouble opening the thick plastic seal while the earth shook beneath him. He could have easily slit the plastic with his extended claws, but the unsteady ground would have caused him to damage the bags, defeating the purpose of getting inside of them.
"Help me with these!" he shouted to Jonathon, seeing him and Marla dash into the room.
Suddenly, Gail screamed as one of the curtains near the patio fell to the floor and a blinding streak of light enveloped her body. Being the youngest of the four, her flesh is the most sensitive to sunlight and she immediately began to blister and burn. Jonathon and Wilmot managed to get the coffin bags open. They threw one to Marla, who ran over to Gail and attempted, in the madness of the vibrating earth and the blinding sunlight, to put the bag over her body, only to be burned by the light herself. The intense California sun of high noon quickly made them look as if they were both dropped into boiling fat, bubbling, sizzling, and popping like french fries.
Wilmot and Jonathon slipped behind the still hanging curtains, just as a loud succession of snapping sounds, like a steel beam being torn apart, then an automobile sized section of plaster falls from the ceiling, seconds before one entire side of the room literally cracks open and drops away from the rest of the building. Even Jonathon with his 914 year old skin can't take the intense heat. With only one leg in his coffin bag, he froze in the suns' rays and began to crackle, his pale skin peeling as it burned one layer at a time, like a rolled up newspaper thrown into a fireplace.
Wilmot managed to pull his bag over his head, but the unsteady earth caused him trouble getting it over his entire body, from the armpits down he smoldered and caught fire, then fell over onto the still quivering floor. As his body cooks in the sun, he realized he can't allow himself to be found by humans, even if only partially. With the last ounce of strength in his burning hands, he removes the coffin bag from his upper body and lets himself be consumed by the flames.
At 12:17 the ground is still again.
)
