Blood Reaction A Vampire Novel (2 page)

“Mom, please don’t turn this into an argument about the house. But you’re right. It was irresponsible of me to ride in the dark, but that has nothing to do with the house.”

Hoping to avoid the never-ending argument about my home, I tried to end it before it got started. My back was hurting from where I had fallen from my horse and I was dirty from rolling around on the ground. I just wanted to take a shower and eat my dinner, but from past experience I knew she was not going to let this drop.

The house was a contention point between us at every turn and to say she hated the place was an understatement. The house, actually its location, terrified her. She wouldn’t even spend the night with me when she came for a visit now that my dad had died. She stayed in town at the Day’s Inn. She preferred to not even drive out the dirt road except in the daylight. I could understand why. After leaving the paved road, it was an eight-mile drive to my house on a very lonely one-lane dirt road.

I had bought an older home built in the antebellum style so far out in the country as to even be called remote. It was large, much more room than I would ever need. The realtor had showed it to me on a whim.

Falling immediately in love with it despite it not being what I was looking for or needed, I had made an offer within the hour. Imagine my surprise when it was accepted just as quickly.

When my parents drove in from one state away to look at the house, Dad had taken one look at the place and announced, “Well, I see you met a salesman.” And he had been right. It was too big, too old, and way too far from civilization to be right for me. Probably the exact same reasons the former owners had sold it. They had even thrown in most of the furniture, they were so desperate to sell. Of course, I was too blinded by the beauty of the house to have thought about that at the time.

Grabbing a long wood-handled spoon to stir the sauce, I tried to multi-task while we talked.

“Annalice, you have absolutely no business living that far out by yourself. You could’ve been killed out in the woods and no one would have ever known. You should have come and spent the week with Ellie and me. Not stayed out there in the boondocks all by yourself.” Boondocks, she was really laying it on thick tonight.

“Mother, I do not live in the boondocks. You’re being ridiculous. Besides, I like it out here.” Now I was laying it on thick. Of course it was the boondocks.

A quiet thump from upstairs made me jump and I splashed spaghetti sauce out of the pan onto the stove where it sizzled on the burner. Laying the spoon down on the stove, I walked into the entryway and looked up the stairs onto the landing above me. I could see nothing out of the ordinary.

Mom was still lecturing me. I had pulled the phone away from my ear but could still make out the buzz of her voice in the background as I listened intently for any more noises upstairs. Hearing no more, I brought the phone back up to my ear.

“Annalice, are you there? Did you hear anything I said?” Her voice was going back up again.

I lied and told her yes. “Mom, look. You and Ellie will be back in a week. Just enjoy yourselves. Have a good time together. I’ll keep the doors locked. You know, I’m actually looking forward to being by myself for a while. Everything will be fine. And I won’t go riding in the dark any more, I promise.” She wouldn’t drop this until I had made at least a few concessions.

“Promise me you’ll keep your cell phone with you.” She expected an easy victory here, but I was not giving in to that one.

“NO! Absolutely not! I want no contact with the hospital while I’m off. They always call and I am not carrying my cell. I promised I would be careful and not ride at dark. That’s as good as it gets, Mom.  Now, listen.  Have fun and call me when you head back this way in a few days with Ellie.  Enjoy your time with her, Mom. She's growing up fast.”

She was angry. I could tell by the flavor of the silence on the other end of the phone. I could almost see her setting her lips in a thin line, wanting to say more but afraid she would say too much.

Another thump from upstairs caught my attention again. I was scared, but I didn’t want to alarm my mom so I told another lie so I could get off of the phone.

“Hey, Mom. Ms. McElhaney’s at the door. She’s probably brought me some homemade bread. I’d better go.” I continued to stare up the stairway, listening intently and trying to get a better angle, but still seeing nothing while Mom talked.

“Oh, you remember her. She’s the little old lady that lives in the first house when you turn off the highway. She doesn’t have much family at all and she spends all of her time writing down the license plates of the cars that use this road. She knows I’m going to be here by myself. She’ll probably endanger everyone who lives out here by driving down to check on me every day.”

Now pacified that someone besides herself knew that I was here alone, Mom warned me to be careful again and said her goodbyes.

“Tell Ellie I love her,” I ended, clicking the phone off gently. I hadn’t told a complete lie. Ms. McElhaney did know I was spending the week alone. We had talked about it last week.

“Why did I ever buy this old house?” I asked out loud to myself. I would never admit it to my mother, but I had admitted it to myself now for at least the hundredth time since moving in. The second story always unnerved me a little, especially at night. I very seldom had a reason to go up there since mine and Ellie’s bedrooms were both on the first floor of the massive old house.

Fighting to control my breathing, I rationalized the sounds.
It’s just a squirrel,
I thought.
Calm down.
“How many times have you done this to yourself?” I reasoned out loud.

Shortly after moving in, I had heard a similar thump. Frantically I had called the police just sure that someone was breaking into the top story of my home The female police officer that had responded to my frantic call had looked at me as if I was a discredit to the entire gender.

But the woman had searched the old home and not being able to find anything, she had walked heavily down the stairs and told me to have the trees cut if the thumps were going to bother me anymore. She had made it pretty clear with her expression that she expected not to be bothered like that again.

Maybe letting my mom win on the issue of the house wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all,
I thought to myself and for a brief moment, I was mad at that realtor all over again. Next time I bought a house, I would be much savvier and I would get a different realtor. I sighed again. I knew the anger was misplaced. It wasn’t his fault that he was such a good salesman and I was a complete sucker. He was just doing his job.

Samuel, who had trailed me in from outside, stood like a statue beside me, his ears at attention. He had heard it too. His only movement was a small inclination of his head to the right accompanied by a low whine.

As much as I hated the thought, I knew that I had to go up there and take a look around. Walking into the living room, I grabbed the panic button for my alarm system from an end table where I always kept it when I was alone in the house and proceeded to climb the stairs to the second story.

“Calm down,” I kept reasoning to myself. I had made this climb many times since the first squirrel incident and everything was always fine. It would be no different this time. I really needed to get those trees cut back. I liked squirrels, but this was just getting out of hand. I would call a tree trimmer tomorrow I decided.

Making it to the second story landing, I peeped around the corner into the hallway and to no great surprise, there was nothing there. I always kept the hall light on and it illuminated every nook and cranny in the long hallway. That was definitely not living green, but I am just way too chicken so the hall light stayed on upstairs every night. Obviously, the presence of a hall light wouldn’t do any good if I did have an intruder, but it made me feel better regardless.

There were three large bedrooms upstairs, all filled with the old rickety antique furniture that the previous owners had left.

My imagination went wild thinking of all the places someone could be hiding in the rooms. But I walked into the first one finding nothing amiss. I didn’t go so far as to look under the bed and I was proud of myself for that bit of rationality, but I did check behind the doors.

The second bedroom was essentially the same but I noticed the air temperature in the room was a little cooler, just barely perceptible. Almost like one of the windows had been opened for a couple of minutes. Walking over to the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the southern side of the house, I pulled back the lace curtains and checked all three.

Unexpectedly, I found one was unlocked but all three were closed, not even opened a crack. Maybe there was more of a draft when the lock wasn’t in place, I decided. Now I’m a stickler for window and door locks so I knew that I hadn’t left it unlocked. It was probably Ellie, she loved to play up here pretending to be a princess among the white antique furniture. I would have to remind her to lock the windows when she finished playing.

Turning to leave the room after securing the window, I felt the hair on my arms raise and a cold chill chased the length of my spine. I froze in place momentarily, but then skipped out of the room as quick as I could.

Standing in the hallway with my back against the wall facing the bedroom, I could see the reflection of the room in the dresser mirror on the wall opposite me. Nothing seemed out of place and nothing moved except the ceiling fan and the faded white lace curtains ruffling gently in its breeze.

Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. The closet door was cracked open slightly and a shaft of light reached into the dark space, shining on nothing in particular. I tried to get my nerve up to go back into the bedroom, but I just couldn’t do it even though the momentary terror had passed quickly enough.

Finally rounding up what nerve I had left, I checked the third room; finding nothing, I quickly ran back down the stairs.

Samuel was still standing in the entryway watching me as I raced down the stairs. He had not trailed after me, which was very odd behavior for him. I hadn’t noticed before, which was good because I probably would have lacked the courage to climb the stairs if I had realized he wasn’t behind me. His ears were still cocked forward and his hackles were up.

Knowing that there was no person upstairs since Samuel wasn’t afraid of anyone, I rationally chalked it up to squirrels and walked back to the kitchen to stir the sauce.

An uneasy feeling clung to me, but there was nothing out of place, nothing missing, and nothing to indicate that someone had been or was in the house. The doors were locked while I was out riding and the second-story windows in the old house were really too high for the average criminal to bother trying to reach.

Even if someone wanted to climb up, it would have been almost impossible to do it quietly or without hurting themselves. An easy reach for squirrels that could walk the long limbs of the old oak trees like tightropes, but the branches that got close enough to the house certainly wouldn’t hold a man.

Letting logic be my guide, I took a deep breath and put the thumps out of my mind. Giving the sauce a quick stir, I poured a glass of raspberry fruit wine and headed into the living room, where I took a seat on the old but comfortable couch.

Samuel had given up on watching the stairwell and rejoined me in the living room, laying spread out just to the left of the couch. I flipped through a few magazines and polished off the glass of wine.

I was just about to get up and pull the spaghetti sauce off the burner when a sensation so familiar and so menacing swept over me that the hair on my arms literally rose and the overwhelming, irrational fear washed over me. Again. The exact same fear I had felt in the woods and upstairs, but this time it was so much more intense that the other episodes paled in comparison.

I’ve been scared before but it was definable moments with definable fears. Suspicious people in parking lots, unexpected visitors at the door of my house, or near-misses on the interstate. But there was nothing definable about this fear except the degree of it that washed across every sense of my being.

Feeling my heart skip and my breath catch in my chest, I froze instantly in place by instinct alone. There was no conscious thought to the act and time seemed to stop as if I was an observer in my own horror story and I could step outside my body for a moment and watch the scene as it inched by me.

Unable to move or utter a word, there was little else I could do other than sit there and let time drag by me. And although I had no idea what the danger was, I knew it was emanating from one direction. I could feel it behind me, but I couldn’t find the courage inside myself to turn around and that was the most frightening feeling of all. The feeling threatened to suffocate me, but breathing provided no relief.

As the seconds ticked by, the fear became more and more palpable and my hands started to tremble. The tremors crawled up from my hands to my forearms and up my shoulders then radiated downward into my chest and abdomen. My legs were shaking at this point as well and I knew I was going to die because I could feel death in the room.

I would have said that as a physician, for the most part I was pretty familiar with death. But I realized now that in reality, I knew little about it. Comfortable death, the kind that carries the old and infirm away, the kind of death that brings peace, that kind of passing I knew something about.