Chapter Six - The Homecoming

The dark blue BMW purred silently through the night down the long, dark stretch of highway between Monroe and Bon Temps. Bill Compton was finally going home. Home. A place he had dreamed of, had fought for and in spite of giving everything he had to give, he had been denied returning to all those years before. There was a feeling of dread and excitement coursing throughout his body. His mind was a tangle of thoughts and memories as his graceful, yet powerful hands gripped the wheel. So many emotions were churning inside him as he grew nearer to Bon Temps and closer to those familiar roads he remembered from his human life. Bill knew that Bon Temps would be greatly changed from the place of his boyhood, the place of his memory. In the 143 years since his human life had ended, Bill had seen the entire world change. Changed in ways that he, his father and anyone living in 1865 could scarce have dreamed of. Even as he neared the exit ramp off 1-20 that would take him onto the highway that led into town, Bill began to search the scenery, looking for something familiar from his memory, something that resembled the small town he had been dreaming of for many, many years.
Bill Compton knew that returning would be difficult. There would be nothing but gravestones to mark his beloved family and friends. He had long ago conditioned himself to the fact that they all were gone, even his grandchildren and great-grandchildren that he had never been given a chance to know. He couldn't help but wonder about the Compton house. How would it look? Would it even resemble the beautiful home from his boyhood? Bill mind was once again pulled back to the days of his human life, his childhood, as he walked beside his father in those very fields that had haunted his dreams and memories for a century and a half. Father was so wise, he knew so much about the land, how to make things grow. Bill had inherited a great deal of his father. The kindness, gentleness and inate sense of morality. For Bill, as his human life died and his new vampire life began, these human traits would be a great obstacle to overcome, often at the cost of constant torment and heartache.
As he began to enter the outskirts of Bon Temps, Bill found himself looking all around him, searching for anything that looked familiar. The town had changed a great deal of course, but there was still a feeling of familiarity, a feeling that only those who return home can feel. The town square was still there, only now there were a few traffic lights, and the large, impressive monument to the Louisana 28th Infantry had been errected since he had been gone. Yet it still felt the same. He could remember where every store and business from his childhood had been. Even the livery and blacksmith shop, just over to the northern section of town. Scenes and memories from childhood came to mind. He and father riding into town on the wagon to pick up supplies and seed or in the heat of late summer, delivering fat bales of cotton to the gin. Father would sometimes let Bill drive the wagon and handle the two sturdy brown horses, Topsy and Claude, and never had Bill felt so grown-up, so important as he circled the square and pulled up with a loud "whoa!" in front of the general store or cotton gin. Sometimes father allowed him a stick of peppermint or a small bag of horehound candy. Bill ran his tongue over his lips as he recalled the taste of that sugary treat melting in his mouth.
It didn't take very long before Bill had driven through town and had turned east, into the more rural area of Bon Temps. As he neared the old Holliday homeplace, where his wife had been born and grown up, he couldn't help but wonder if any of it was still standing. That question was answered shortly. For there where the stately home had stood, where he had knelt down on one knee and wept as he asked Miss Caroline Amelia Holliday to become his wife, was a loud and noisy eating place of some sort. Sam Merlotte's Bar and Grill. "Holy fuck!" thought Bill as he drove on past it. It made hime sad in such a way that he couldn't even begin to put a explanation behind it..
Before long he was on the small blacktop road that wound around by the Stackhouse place. "At least that's what it use to be. There's no telling as to what it is now. Probably some sort of titty bar, if what I've seen so far is any indication", Bill thought. But soon he could see that the Stackhouse home was not only still there, but seemed to be much larger than he remembered. It had been added on to over the years until it resembled an oddly shaped creation of a child's building blocks. As Bill approached the cemetery, he thought briefly about stopping and getting out, but changed his mind. There would be plenty of time for that later. Besides, with the churching of emotions inside him right now, it would be quite difficult to maintain his composure and a vampire was never quite sure what might greet him when arriving in a new place. Even with the introduction of the new synthetic blood and the assurances of powerful, high-ranking vampires all over the world that humans could lay head to pillow confident in the knowledge that vampires were as safe as your friendly postman, there were still quite a few humans who didn't share that opinion. Then Bill rounded the sharp curve and there it was. After wandering for 143 years as a lost soul, William Thomas Compton was finally home.
Bill stood in the front yard and gazed across at the house. The Compton house, home of his childhood and then home to he and his wife Caroline and their two children. As he stood there and gazed at it he couldn't help but be drawn back to the final time he saw this house. The night his maker, Lorena, had brought him here with the promise of once again seeing his family. To see them, but not be allowed to touch them, to feel them in his arms. Bill refused to let his mind dwell on that right now. That was a long time ago, and nothing could be done to change the past. He gazed up at the upstairs window, just to the far left. It was the room Bill had been born in, the room his mother and father had shared until their death. Yes, the house had changed. Changed in a lot of ways, but also changed very little. Bill was somewhat shocked at how decayed and neglected the house appeared. His last living descendent with the name Compton had recently passed away, and hopefully with the passage of the Vampire Right Amendment, this old crumbling house would once again be his. Bill walked across the yard, up the steps and stopped in front of the large door. He was almost frightened to turn the doorknob and go inside. As he crossed the threshold he stopped and looked around. A huge tidalwave of emotions came at him with such force as to almost cause his knees to buckle. Home, he was home.
Bill's father had been a gifted and skilled woodcarver, a talent he had tried to pass on to his son. As Bill gazed around the room he could see that some of the lovely crown moldings above the doorways and the exquisite handrail on the staircase were still there. Things his father had carved and lovingly put in their home. As his eyes drifted to the staircase, his mind was taken back to a Christmas morning, the last Christmas Bill would spend with his family. He could hear it as clearly as if it were happening right now, the excited sound of squealing and joy as his little daughter Sarah came running down the stairs to find the beautiful hand carved riding pony that Bill and his father had made for her. Bill walked across the front room into the dining room. He ran his hand down the doorframe on his left. Yes, it was still there. Although coated in many, many layers of paint, Bill could still feel the notches cut into the doorframe by his father every year on Bill's birthday. Marks made to keep up with how much he had grown. On the other side of the door were but a few marks. Bill's brother, Robert, had not survived childhood. A malaria outbreak had take Robert's life when he was but eight years old.
Bill walked upstairs and for a brief moment he could smell it. He could smell the light fragrance of the lavender toilet water that his mother always wore. As he closed his eyes he could feel the touch of her cool hands on his face as she leaned over to lightly kiss his cheek after hearing his prayers, just before she said good-night. He remembered the cool touch of her lips on his forehead when she came into his room during the night to see if he was feverish. So, so many memories.
But dawn was approaching and Bill knew he had to find a safe place to rest before the sun rose. He went back downstairs and stopped in front of a wall panel. Bill remembered receiving a letter from his father while he was away fighting. A letter telling Bill that a hiding place had been made inside the home so that the women and children, along with other valuables and food, could be hidden out of sight should the Yankee patrols come by. Bill began to feel around on the walls, pushing and feeling up and down until he felt it. There, there it was. Bill pushed against the spring and the panel opened. It was a small area but adquate for what he needed. He looked down. Yes, this would be a perfect resting place. Bill immediately got to work pulling up and sawing the floorboards. He made a door with hinges and a lock for the inside. He barely finished before he felt the internal call letting him know dawn was upon him. He would have to finish the final touches another night.
As Bill climbed down into his resting place, he pulled the door closed and latching it with a loud click, he lay back, closed his eyes as a slight smile just creased the corners of his mouth. For better or worse, William Thomas Compton was finally home.