Damon (28 page)

“But you were in here?” Chester countered.

This wasn’t going in the right direction. Of course, Damon had been in their house. He wouldn’t have been able to resist. But I still didn’t believe he had defaced their wall.

I tried to steer us all back on topic. “Why did you all move here together? All of you together. It’s weird.”

Chester frowned at me. “Why is this so important at this hour?”

Because we’re delusional,
I wanted to cry at him.
Can’t you tell
? “I can’t sleep till I know.” That sounded better. I couldn’t sleep because Damon wouldn’t let me sleep.

“Well,” Chester said, nodding to the pictures. “You want to know what, exactly?”

“We found a man who knew you and Gram and everyone when you were little. He said you used to have different names. He said you all died in a fire fifty years ago.”

Chester’s eyes widened and his face turned a dark red. “What have you been doing? Investigating us?”

Damon stiffened against me, and I held his hand hoping to keep him silent. “Pine Hollow Road,” he said. “The hand in the box. Cave portal.
Secrets
.”

“Secrets you kids’ have got no business knowing,” Chester said, clearly agitated now. Sweat broke out on his forehead and top lip.

I wanted to back off, because I didn’t like seeing Chester upset, I didn’t want him mad at me, and I worried about his health. And, suddenly, it seemed we were out of line. Interfering in things that weren’t our business, as Chester claimed.

“Gawd!” Damon groaned. “Get to it.”

I wanted to know more about Grammy’s life, but Damon’s fuse was short. Still, I couldn’t just come right out and ask Chester if he was a vampire. “Why did you all move here together?” I asked him.

He pushed himself up straighter and rubbed his eyes. He was growing more upset with each question and I could tell he wouldn’t let me interrogate him much longer.

“I don’t know, Maggie,” he said, “it just worked out that way. I had this drugstore in mind and Corky wanted to build the saltbox house like that picture he kept in his billfold. My parents had passed away and the others needed work. There was work here in the factory back then.”

“You moved to Knoxville first. And then here?”

Chester nodded. “Properties were cheaper out here than in the city. We were used to the country. Plain and simple.”

“Ask about the cave,” Damon said behind my back.

Chester heard him and picked up Gram’s amethyst pendant. He studied it thoughtfully. “Corky had these made up for us one year for Christmas. He had the jewelers here for many years.”

“What about changing your names? Is my real name Baushke or Bosch? Was Gram Elizabeth or Ellen? I feel like I don’t know who I am.”

“You’re Maggie Jennings,” Damon said.

Chester gave Damon a sly glance. “Damon Jennings was the character in the book Elliot wrote.” His gaze turned back to Damon. “It’s been so many years, I didn’t remember at first. You didn’t think I read that, did ya.”

I looked from one to the other. “What are y’all talking about?”

“Oh, Elliot wrote a book,” Chester said, settling back. “It was about a man that discovers he’s a vampire. He named the main character Damon Jennings. He couldn’t get it published so he had it printed up himself. He gave copies to all his friends.”

“Damien Jennings,” Damon corrected. “Not Damon. Damien. But I didn’t like that name. He stole it from
The Omen
. I like Damon.”

“Ah,” Chester nodded, “right. Well, it’s been a while, don’t remember the details.”

“He was a vampire from another dimension,” Damon said with a light voice. “A parallel universe. A place like Earth where red vampires exist. One day, a vampire named Simon finds a portal in a cave, a portal into this dimension, this reality, where humans rule the land. He found himself in a strange land, under attack, and had to fight back. He killed a human. He was horrified and ran off, forced to live his life here in this reality. He transformed into a man and tried to blend in. But he never could. He couldn’t understand their ways, their culture. He began to lose his mind. He couldn’t remember who he was, where he came from, or why he was so different. He doesn’t know why he craves blood. He falls in love with—”

I turned on Damon and the smile fell from his face. He was having fun reminiscing and had forgotten that he’d been vandalizing people’s homes and acting completely crazy… over some book. And ruining my life.

“All of this is from a
book
?” I demanded.

“I believe I have a copy here somewhere,” Chester offered. “I’ll look for it, when I’ve got the time.”

“I don’t believe this.”

He’d actually convinced me that I was a vampire. That we were….

Chester’s voice turned serious. “If I remember correctly, he wakes up one morning and found somebody wrote
The Vampire is Here
on his wall. I just wonder what you were trying to prove, son, writing that on my wall.”

“You did write that?” I asked him, completely dismayed. My world was falling apart. How in the world could I have been sick and twisted enough to drink blood? And to believe Damon’s stories? What had happened to me? I was married to a fictional character!

Mama was probably dead because of me… no, because of Damon. He’d warped my mind and made me forget about her. I didn’t even know where she was.

He’d done exactly what he’d once spoken about. He’d barged into my life with the sole purpose of ruining me, before taking off to do it to somebody else. He was a sociopath.

“I don’t remember doing that,” Damon told me when he saw himself change in my eyes. “I swear. I might have done it, but I don’t remember. I black out sometimes. I didn’t mean to do it.”

I didn’t believe him. I was sure he did mean to do it. I was sure he did mean to destroy me. But I had to do something to clear myself, to prove I wasn’t crazy and gullible. The only way to prove my sanity was to prove there were still a few mysteries amiss.

“I heard you talking to Mrs. Jarvis in my room,” I accused Chester. “I heard you. Before we went to the hospital.”

“Mrs. Jarvis?” he said, shaking his head. “Well, she came over to check on you. You were burning up with the fever, kiddo.”

“But…. What about the hand? The hand in the box.”

They wouldn’t answer me. Chester sat frowning at Damon again. Damon sat with his eyebrows raised.

“You got into my storage cabinet?” Chester said. “You didn’t break the lock, did you?”

Why wouldn’t anyone just answer my questions? I was about to lose it. “There was a skeleton hand in a box!” I yelled.

“A Halloween thing,” Chester said, holding up a calming hand. “It’s certainly not real, if that’s what you’re thinking. We used to do up Halloween every year in the old factory, for charity. A joke for the kids.”

“A
joke
?”

I jumped up and stumbled back, away from them both, almost tripping over the coffee table. I clutched my head to keep the room from spinning. “What are you trying to do to me?” I cried. “You’re trying to destroy me!”

They had been conspiring against me from the very beginning, it was all so clear now. The very people I trusted the most. Every strong support in my life was crumbling and I couldn’t catch all the falling pieces.

My horror grew as they stood up and came at me growling with raised claws, scowling with glowing silver eyes. Then I blinked and saw that they were only standing, with their normal faces, staring at me as if I were the one!

“Maggie, look at your hands,” Damon said. “Nothing’s happening.”

I pointed at him. “You’ve been injecting me with heroin or something, making me hallucinate. Making me….” Do so many horrible things I couldn’t even form them into words.

“Heroin?” Chester demanded, taking a step to glower at Damon. “You son of a bitch.”

Chester’s move to defend me helped in calming me, considerably. I looked at them and saw that they hadn’t changed. Chester was still Chester and Damon was still crazy.

They weren’t working together. This was all Damon’s doing.

He was making me crazy, just like Aunt Cynthia had said. He was trying to turn me into him. And I had been more than happy to transform.

“I never injected you with anything,” he told me in a hard, defensive tone. “Everything’s real. One hundred percent. You know that.”

“No, it’s not,” I said, starting to cry.

“I swear to God, if you’ve been hurting her….” Chester threatened. Neither of us really heard him.

Damon’s eyes widened and he fell back to the couch, clutching the edge of the cushions. “Oh, god, you don’t love me anymore. You finally saw me.”

“You’re making me crazy!” I yelled at him.

We had disturbed Bella and she came into the living room to see who was in her house, and what all the yelling was about.

“What on earth is going on in here?” she asked. “Maggie, why aren’t you at the hospital?”

I rushed to hold her arm for protection. “He’s trying to kill me!”

“
Kill
you?” she repeated with alarm.

Chester moved to the center of the room, between me and my dangerous husband. “He’s been injecting her with heroin! I’m gonna kill him!”

“
Heroin
?” Bella gasped. “My lord, Maggie.”

Damon stood up, holding his hands out in front of him as shields. “
Every… body… stop
.” He spoke so softly and seriously, so cautiously, even I stopped moving to see what was happening. Then I realized I was the one he feared might come completely unglued if anyone moved or spoke too swiftly. He was right. I was on the verge of running in circles screaming in terror. I’d been drinking blood because of a book I’d never even read!

Damon pointed a finger in my direction then turned to speak to Chester. “I never injected her with anything,” he said. “I’ve never even seen heroin. I’m not doing anything wrong!”

The diazepam he’d taken was coursing through his veins, probably all that kept him from exceeding my distress. Still, the skin on his face seemed to vibrate like water in a bowl that had been disturbed. Maybe it was only my warped eyes playing tricks.

I held onto Bella for dear life, wishing I would faint and escape this nightmare.

“This is getting out of hand,” Chester said. “My god.”

“Baby,” Damon said, walking slowly toward me, “let’s talk in private. This isn’t right. We’re just tired and confused. Let’s go somewhere and sleep and talk about it tomorrow.”

“Maybe you’d better stay back,” Bella warned.

“Maybe you’d better get the hell out of my house!” Chester boomed.

Damon turned, clutching his head as I had been, trying to find some order in this room of chaos. It hurt me to see him this way, eyes so tired and distressed, but I couldn’t go to him. I couldn’t forgive him.

His lies had become too damaging. His insanity was destroying everyone he met. I had others to think of, not just myself. I had Mama and Bella and Chester, and even Cynthia. Even my home and my job and my town. He was a walking disease.

“Do you want me to call James Eddie and have him escort you out?” Chester demanded.

Damon stopped pacing and locked his gaze on mine. “Maggie,” he said calmly. “Just tell me what’s happening. I can tell everyone has turned against me, but I don’t know why. Why did the room change all of a sudden? Did I say or do something wrong? You always tell me the truth. I’ll stop doing it if you’ll tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

I could barely speak through the tears I was desperately trying to hold back. “You’re making me crazy. You’re making me like Mama and I’ve tried so hard to stay sane.”

“Oh, honey,” Bella murmured, rubbing my back.

“Okay,” Damon said, glancing between Chester and Bella before backing up and sitting on the couch again. “I’ve heard that one before. I’ve been accused of that before. So, it must be true.” Tears came to his eyes. “I must do that. I don’t mean to.”

“Did any of it really happen?” I asked him. I needed answers. Real, solid answers. “Did we go to Kentucky? Did we talk to Pawpaw? Were Gram and Grampa Harvey really hiding things? Are we married? What about the dream?” I turned to Bella, who had always been honest with me. “How long have I been gone?”

Bella glanced at Chester and my heart began to race when I saw she was wondering whether to lie to me. I could read it in her face.

“Let’s all sit down,” Chester said. “This has gone too far.”

Bella gave me a pat on the back. “Sit down, honey.”

I couldn’t bring myself to return to my seat on the couch beside Damon, so I took the other soft, comfy armchair. Bella brought the desk chair over and sat down.

Chester took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then put them back on, sat back, and let out a sigh. “It’s true,” he said. “We did get into some trouble back in Kentucky. We didn’t leave because of work. There was an old story told by my dad. His dad, my granddad, had made a lot of money up north but had also made some enemies. He moved down south and hid a trunk of gold coins in a cave somewhere. But he died suddenly and no one ever knew where it was. Some Sundays we’d go cave hunting, looking for that treasure. There wasn’t much to do for fun back then. It was an outing. We’d leave the kids with Corky’s mama, pack a picnic and make an afternoon out of it.”

“Except, one day…,” Bella said. She closed her eyes for a long moment and crossed her arms. I saw her hands were shaking.

“One day,” Chester continued, “we ran into some trouble. We came across a man—”

“A beast,” Bella corrected. “A monster. A hideous, horrible beast.”

This time, Chester closed his eyes tightly before opening them, looking ten years older in a second. “It came at us, screeching, looking like the devil itself. It had red fur and fangs and eyes like… like….”

“See,” Damon said, still staying calm, but pointing emphatically at me. “See?”

“That thing meant to kill us,” Bella said, nodding with certainty.

“It would have,” Chester said. “We found ourselves in a fight for our lives. It threw us every which way. Your Grampa Harvey, and Beverly,” he nodded at Damon, “your grandma, were hurt bad. Verna’s new husband was killed that day. We thought we’d all die. But Elliot had his pickax and like a warrior, went after that thing. He slashed it up and took it down, and when it was over, we saw its hand was cut off. Blood went everywhere like you can’t imagine. The thing lay still and then….”