Damon (19 page)

The man ducked and whirled around. He stood his ground, though, and waited to see what the crazy man might do next.

“Guess I made a mess, huh?” Damon said in a slightly humorous voice.

The man was instantly livid. He stepped forward, to speak to Damon at a reasonable, yet safe, distance. His voice emerged surprisingly calm, considering the size of his eyes. “There’s a substantial amount of damage here, sir.”

“Yeah,” Damon said. “I’m sorry. Just fix up the bill. I’ve got cash.”

Damon spoke so calmly, so reasonably, the man dropped his defenses a degree. “Are you done?” he asked, his wide, offended eyes driving home his point.

“Yeah, I’m done,” my husband said. “Just go fix up the bill. We’ll get out of here.”

“I’m really sorry,” I called through the narrow space in the doorway. “We’ll leave.”

“And pay for this,” the man reiterated, nodding his head, waiting for conformation.

“I said I’ve got cash,” Damon told him.

“Then you better come with me to the office.”

“I’ll go,” I said, darting through the open space. Damon didn’t say anything as I jogged up to meet the… I squinted at his identification pin… night manager, Terence Morton.

Apparently, the man didn’t want to risk provoking Damon because he gave my husband a wary glance and decided I’d have to do for collateral.

“He won’t leave me,” I told him, “I’m his wife.” I showed him my ring, but he misunderstood.

“I’ll need cash,” he said. “Cash or major credit card only.”

I prayed that Damon really did have some cash - I wasn’t about to part with my beautiful ring.

As we walked I put on my cheerful yet reasonable face, the one I used with James Eddie and the EMT’s and the doctors, and tried to explain Damon’s condition, hoping to smooth things over so the police wouldn’t have to become involved. I used Mama’s medical history since I really didn’t know exactly what Damon’s diagnosis had been.

“And then he had an allergic reaction, and they changed his medication,” I rambled on. Terence began to relax, somewhat, and listened attentively to my story. “This happened before, when they got the doses wrong. He really can’t help it. It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain.”

“I see.”

“He’s really not dangerous at all. I’m so sorry we ruined your night.”

He held the door open for me and I stepped into the cool lobby. A family with small children was checking in and turned to stare when they sensed the mood we brought inside with us. The clerk behind the desk kept a close eye on me as I followed Terence into his office.

I felt like a criminal. And might soon be, I realized. If Terence called the cops, they might take me in just the same as Damon. We would have to depend on Cynthia to bail us out. And she didn’t have any money.

While he made out a list at his desk, I sat in a plastic chair and tried to think of how to lighten this situation. “We just got married today,” I told him.

He looked up at me, but only nodded and went back to work.

“So we’re both a little on edge,” I continued. “My family disapproves and his dad is real sick. Then we got into an argument, and with his medication messed up, he couldn’t handle the situation the right way. I swear I had no idea this would happen when we came here.”

“I understand,” he said with a terse voice. “Was there any damage to the inside?”

“No, just what he threw out the window.”

“I’ll send someone to look at that.”

He wasn’t calling the police, so I thought he did understand, as much as he wanted to.

Damon’s voice caught my ear. “Where are they?” I heard him demand.

I jumped up and went to the doorway. “In here.”

He cocked his head when he saw me and made a straight line for the office. He held something in his fist. My eyes focused on that hand, trying to see if it might be a knife, or a gun, but it was an unreasonably thick stack of legal tender.

He dropped the money onto Terence’s desk. “Count that and see if that’ll do it,” he said.

Terence counted the money, which I saw were all hundreds, but stopped halfway. He held a bill up to the light checking for authenticity. There had to be close to five thousand dollars there. When he looked up his eyes were steady but shining. “Sir, this is too much. I’m almost finished, if you’ll have a seat.”

“Keep it,” Damon said and ushered me from the office with his hand on my back.

“Where did you get all that money?” I asked him as soon as we were outside in the fresh, free air.

“That’s nothing,” he said.

Damon had put everything in the car, including my abused suitcase, and we drove away from hotel number two in Knoxville, Tennessee.

“What do we do now? Go back to Aunt Cynthia’s?”

He squirmed down in his seat and got comfortable. Then he smiled at me and rested his hand high up on my thigh.

“We’re going home.”

“
Home
home?”

“Home,” he said. “To our house with two front doors and a rock pond in the backyard, and nobody else around. Damon’s beautiful wife needs to go home. He’s been putting her through hell.”

“I’m ready,” I whispered.

Ten years of stress melted off my bones and I leaned on the console to be closer to him. I did want to go home, more than anything. Our vacation had been exhausting. I wanted to see my own view and sleep in my own bed, and relax.

“Just rest your head on my shoulder, sweet lover,” Damon said in a soothing, deep voice not exactly his own. “We’ll be home when you awaken.”

I wasn’t worried this time, about the strange voice speaking through him. The voices couldn’t hurt us. We knew how to muddle through.

I found a comfortable spot against the muscles of his shoulder and closed my eyes. “I can’t wait.”

The bobbing rhythm of the car felt so lovely I completely forgot that I had a mentally ill mother, abandoned at Aunt Cynthia’s.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The moment I woke up I knew something was wrong. First, it was daylight, and the ride home should have gotten us there by midnight. Second, when I looked out the car window I saw mountains all around us.

But more disturbing was that I was alone. Damon had left me asleep in the car, parked to the side of some rundown outskirts gas station.

He’d probably stopped to get breakfast and refill the gas tank.

If I’d been more awake I would have immediately guessed Damon’s train of thought, but I was still groggy and it took me a moment to conclude that he was taking us to Pine Hollow. To the town where it had all begun. To the cave where vampires lived.

We were somewhere in Kentucky. I should have known he wouldn’t be able to leave his obsession alone.

He wouldn’t have meant to lie, either, I told myself, because I was severely disappointed. His disorder must have taken control sometime on the road home, and he’d turned the car around.

He couldn’t stop himself. Another symptom of his disorder. Just like Mama couldn’t keep from picking up the phone when she walked past to see if anyone was on the other end, spying on her.

I took the keys, which were still in the ignition, and went in search of my poor haunted husband, and a bathroom.

Damon was leaned over the counter inside, pouring over a map with the scraggly man running the place. When Damon glanced at me his head whipped around for a second look and he came to give me an affectionate hug – overly affectionate for the location. His hands roamed to stroke my most intimate places before he settled down to wrap his arms around me.

I hugged him back and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the odd look the clerk was giving us.

“She woke up scared,” Damon said in my ear, his voice thick with compassion. “I wanted to be there.”

“I knew where you were,” I said.

He gave me a kiss on the forehead then stepped back to hold me by the shoulders. “Get anything you want. We’re almost done.”

“Okay.” I flashed the clerk a quick smile and went in search of the bathrooms. I’d been in dozens of little stores like this one and sometimes the restrooms were through the storeroom in the back. I maneuvered past cases of soft drinks and motor oil and found the little, less than sanitary, bathroom.

A man had been in there last, the toilet seat was up, so I hurried, trying to breathe as little as possible, and got back out.

Damon was waiting, seeming anxious to leave. He took the half-pint of milk I’d selected and gave the man twenty dollars for it. We left without waiting for change.

I couldn’t believe the way he threw his money around. I was so used to counting pennies his behavior truly seemed psychotic to me. My husband was a spendthrift. I could have lived with a lot, but I wasn’t sure I could live with that.

“Did you find the town?” I asked when we were on the road again, and I realized Damon wasn’t planning to offer any information.

“We’re close,” was all he’d say.

“I thought you’d been here before.”

“It was a long time ago,” he said. Then he let out a growl and punched the steering wheel. He glanced at me with a pained expression. “That’s not true. That’s a lie. I’ve never been here. I thought about it so much I began to think it was real.”

“Okay. It doesn’t matter.”

I drank my milk and tried to get over the disappointment of not waking up at home. Adjusting wasn’t too difficult. It only took me a few minutes.

I could remember Mama being like this when I was little. She would come after me without any warning, load me into the car and off we’d go. Sometimes we took luggage, sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we went somewhere specific, most times we just drove around. But always, there was a special place she desperately needed to be, if only she could find it.

Damon drove leaning forward with his arms wrapped around the steering wheel, watching the landmarks carefully. I brushed his hair with my fingers, trying to feel close to him again since he wasn’t paying me the slightest attention.

“Quit your job,” he said.

My fingers froze in his hair. “No. Why?”

“We don’t need the money and I need you here with me. We’ve got more important things to do.”

“How much money do you have?” I asked, more to change the subject than out of curiosity. Although I was curious.

“Lots and lots. More than enough.”

“But how much? I’m your wife now. I have the right to know.”

He glanced at me without expression. “That’s something you don’t have to worry about anymore. You’ve got way too much on your mind as is.”

“You’ve spent about ten thousand dollars in the last two days. You pass it out like sticks of gum. I am worried.”

“How much have you got?” he asked.

“On me? Two hundred. Why, is that all we have?”

“No, just wondering.”

“Wondering,” I scoffed. “You’ve been through my purse, I’m sure. Where are we?”

“In the mountains.”

“I can see that.”

“Just minutes from Pine Hollow.”

He slammed on the brakes and turned sharply onto a narrow side road. We were in the wilderness, that’s where we were, and driving farther inside its web.

“Wait, are we running away to hide in the mountains?”

The road was long and winding with no direction but forward. Nothing but endless trees all around us. Damon sat back and relaxed, sending me a lazy smile. “Not yet, honey baby,” he said. “That’s a last resort. Things are still getting better.”

“Did you sleep last night?”

He reached over to stroke my hair and rub my shoulders and neck. “I never could sleep.”

Mama used to have trouble sleeping, too. “What are we looking for again? I can’t remember.” I wanted to see if his story had changed.

“The cave. Where they came from.”

“The vampires?”

“Once we find them,” he continued, “we won’t have to wonder anymore. We’ll know who we are.
What
we are. We might even live with them.”

Now I really was worried. I hadn’t truly realized what he was after. I’d been living on the periphery of his obsession. “You want to live with vampires?”

“Don’t you?” he said with a baffled laugh.

I guess I wasn’t completely over my disappointment, because my belligerent side began to rise to the surface. “We already were. Chester and Bella and Verna Jarvis. Remember? They’re all vampires.”

“They were bitten by a vampire,” he said, frowning at me. “These are the real thing. There’s a secret, hidden village where they all live.”

“I thought they lived in caves.”

“The cave leads to the portal.”

Now I frowned at him. “They must have been dangerous if Gram and everybody wanted to leave.”

“I don’t know,” he said seriously. “We’ll see.”

“They’re probably not there anymore.”

“They’re here,” he said, training his eyes forward, “I can
feel
them. I’m a compass needle homing in. I’m a coonhound, I can smell ‘em. I’m
god.
”

Immediately, he squeezed my knee and laughed apologetically. “Sorry, that just shot right out of my mouth. That was the crazy guy. I’m hearing voices again.”

I patted his thigh. “It’s okay. Do we have enough gas?”

He relaxed his shoulders and smiled at me. “Yep. Filled up. We’re good. We’re perfect.”

That was good because I didn’t like the look of this never-ending road. We were all alone miles from anywhere, probably just a few turns away from being lost. For the first time in my life, I wished for a cell phone, though it probably wouldn’t have worked out here.

“I know exactly where we are,” Damon said.

I looked at him and decided he could read my mind, sometimes. He was, without a doubt, my soul mate.

Suddenly, the road looked beautiful, magical and mysterious. I held my new husband’s hand, leaned my shoulder against his, and watched the scenery.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt truly free and alone, without Mama riding on my back. But she couldn’t find me here. No matter how hard she looked, she would never find me way out here. I’d escaped her, for awhile.

“I hope it’s a nice little town,” I said, thinking aloud, “with friendly people and pretty farmhouses and steeples and shops. I hope they only left because they wanted to see more of the world.”