Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Epilogue Episode 7

"Take it and the angels will watch over you. Don't let the red paint on it wash away though. They would hate that, understand?"

"Here. For the only kind brother I have left. May my angels now watch over you."

     Lincoln had returned home later that night while the moon resided high at its zenith. He washed away dirt and soot and sand that had collected in crevices all over. He pondered it, more focused on his line of thought than his cleaning. "A rock with an X; some type of lucky charm? Some vaguely religious symbol?" The bewilderment caused him a light titter, and the imagined picture of the rock drove his curiosity toward the real thing, wishing to look at it as if to see how closely he remembered it. He reeled the shower curtain aside and spotted it on the counter of the sink. While he stared at it, the water pouring down from the shower head became white noise—a static that made his focus increase. All distractions and irrelevant sounds became silent. All but the static of water.

     He felt slightly uneasy. Looking at the rocking, he felt as if it were staring back at him. "Angels watching over me?" he said aloud to himself. "What kind of angels?" he verbally wondered. He closed the curtain, finished his routine, then stepped out and dried off. He pulled on his nightclothes and his eye caught the rock a second time. The same feeling—the stalking feeling, like a cauterizing peer—came again. This time it irritated him so, that a stone could cause him this paranoia. The irrationality of it frustrated him. He picked it up, looked over it with some spite, then gripped it in his fist. "What are you?" he asked. "Are you blessed or are you cursed?" The mystique leaves him quietly interrogating it a minute further.

...

"Michael Backster?"

"Please, Lincoln, just Father Michael."

"Father Michael, you've been religious a while, right?"

"I've devoted my life to God since I can remember. Being a priest, I suspect you could presume as much?"

"Yes, that's why I came to you. Do you recognize this?"

"Hmm. Seems to be a stone of some material that's unrecognizable to me. And on it, a cross carefully painted in red."

"A cross... I guess I hadn't thought of it that way. I always looked at it diagonally."

"Oh. So that was of help? I'm surprised, as there's not much else I can tell you about it. It's a simple stone someone brushed a symbol onto. Whether it's a symbol of God or not is hard to tell. Intention takes context to determine."

"Well, thanks, Father."

"No problem, Lincoln. Do you suppose you'll be attending the chapel anytime soon? We'd love to have you."

"We'll see, Father."

He bid the priest a final goodbye in the form of a wave, then left his doorstep to venture back to his place of rest. While he walked, he continued to bounce questions around in his head. Something was different about this stone, he could feel it hold him by his visceral in a crude way. It turned his systems inside him with a force that nearly nauseated him. Why was it so cruel to him? Just then, he felt a spot of cold on the back of his neck. He put his finger to it and drew it back to observe. Water. A raindrop. Following it, was a further assault of downpour. The volley drenched his close in seconds. He must've not seen the dark clouds overhead until now, as they sneakily hid within the darkness of the sky with spare moonlight to penetrate them. "God, I wish I brought a coat" was Lincoln's first thought.