Night Feast (3 page)

Yakov Anchova could see his house in the distance and felt slightly relieved.  He quickened his steps, almost breaking into a run.  His wife would be surprised, because this had been the first time in twenty years that her husband had returned home without being falling down drunk.  As he got closer to his front door he could see a figure standing outside.  He could not see who it was at first, it was definitely a tall male figure and he thought that it may be one of his teenage sons, who was there to try and stop him from causing the usual havoc that was habitual, when he returned from the inn.  For a moment he squared his shoulders, as the master of the house who could do whatever he liked.  And then he saw that it wasn’t his son at all.

Valentin Malenkov stood at his front door.  His mouth was open, revealing a sharp set of pointed teeth.  He had a ferocious expression on his face as he watched Yakov visibly become pale with terror.  Yakov turned to run but Valentin pounced on him, flying swiftly through the air in anticipation of the feed that he was about to have.  He tore at Yakov’s throat without mercy and drank the blood from his overweight body.  The vampire kept him alive while he continued his torture.  Yakov called out to his wife and his sons for help, as he felt the sharp teeth rip into his skin, his veins, his soul.  He tried to struggle, but his undead opponent was unbelievable strong, and determined to make him suffer as much as possible.  He lived for an hour under these conditions, before Valentin removed his remains, and buried them where they could never be found.

Yakov’s wife and children always dreaded his return from the inn.  He was a cruel and spiteful man and much worse when he was drunk.  Night after night they had had to endure his unpleasantness and they had prayed that one day that it would stop.  This was to be the first of many nights that the Anchova family would get a good night’s sleep.

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Marybeth McCann was paying no attention to her client’s idle chatter as she washed her hair.  She was thinking about her husband, Eddy.  He was a different man now, and it was all due to the discovery of the Hudson girl’s body.  Amberlee Robinson was her last client for the day at the hair dressing salon.  When she had finished she would go home and cook meatloaf, it was Eddy’s favourite.

“Hey, I know you, you’re married to the old guy who found Elena Hudson’s body aren’t you?”

Marybeth bristled visibly.  Eddy was not an ‘old guy’, he was in his early sixties, still in his prime, or at least he was until recent events.  He had aged overnight, he looked ten years older.  Amberlee Robinson didn’t wait for a response but carried on talking.

“I knew her you know, we were at the same college.  She was okay I guess, but I don’t believe this ‘killed by an wolf like animal’ thing.  I think that she was having an affair with some older married guy, you know someone around thirty, and she wanted him to leave his wife, so he killed her and made it look like she’d been bitten by something.  What did your husband say about aargh!”

Marybeth had purposely sprayed hot water in Amberlee’s eyes.

“Oops, sorry, my hand slipped.”

“What are you trying to do drown me?” said Amberlee dramatically.  Marybeth thought the idea of that was very appealing.  She wrapped a towel around Amberlee’s long brown hair and led her to the dryer.  The teenage girl did not try to question her any further, and sulkily buried her face in a fashion magazine.

It was bright but cold outside.  Marybeth shivered as she hurried to her car, it had been a long eight hours and she wanted to get home and put her feet up for at least ten minutes before cooking dinner.

“Marybeth, how are you?”

Cora Patterson was standing a few feet away from her, loaded down with shopping bags.

“I’m fine Cora, how are you?” said Marybeth cordially.

“Oh you know, I’m okay I guess.”

“Would you like a ride home Cora?  It’ll be no trouble.”

Cora Patterson was grateful for the offer, she really didn’t want use public transport with all her shopping bags.  She accepted Marybeth’s offer without hesitation.

The two women talked about their kids, property prices, the weather anything but the Elena Hudson tragedy.  Marybeth was glad of the respite, everyone she met just lately wanted to gossip about it.  That loud mouthed, big breasted little minx at the salon was the last straw.  Drowning her wouldn’t have been punishment enough.  She was a born troublemaker.

Marybeth accepted Cora’s invitation for coffee when they pulled up outside the Patterson house.  She helped carry her bags inside, and they sat in the welcoming kitchen drinking two strong cups of coffee.  Cora could see that Marybeth was a little anxious but she did not push her for information.  However Marybeth confided in her anyway by voicing her concern about her husband.

“He just hasn’t been the same since he found that girl Cora, he’s lost his appetite, he’s having nightmares, I don’t know what to do, he won’t go out, he won’t see a doctor..........”

“Well it’s understandable, it must have been quite a shock seeing her like that, but he really ought to go and see the doctor.  It sounds like he has that post traumatic shock syndrome.”

Marybeth nodded in agreement.  Her coffee had cooled down a little and she took a large sip.  Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the coffee mug.  She appeared to want to say more, but was reluctant to do so.  She was worried about what Cora would think if she told her anything else.  However, she knew that she wasn’t a gossip like most of the people in the neighbourhood.  Marybeth took a deep breath.

“I think he’s losing his mind.”

“Losing his mind?” repeated Cora.  “Why, why do you think that?  Post traumatic stress is very common in these situations, I sure that a few sessions with a good therapist will get him back to normal.  It doesn’t surprise me that Eddy has been so badly affected by this because you know as well as I do that he is always beating the drum about all the terrible things that go on in this world, and to actual experience something like this in his own environment was bound to tip him over the edge.”

Marybeth nodded.  It was good to be able to talk to someone that she could trust about the problem.  She decided to continue.

“He talks in his sleep and the things that he says are very disturbing.  He says that Elena’s body looked like it had been drained of all its blood and her eyes were wide open , then he starts to scream ‘She’s alive, she’s still alive, I know it she’s still alive.”

Sitting opposite her friend at her kitchen table Cora Patterson was muted in a horrified silence.

They didn’t hear that Jay had come and stood outside the kitchen door, eavesdropping on their conversation. 

Chapter T
wo

Amberlee Robinson and her three friends decided to go to the Diner after college today, to discuss the upcoming college dance that was being held in celebration of its opening sixty years ago.  The gossipy group of girls were very excited about the event.  The stories around the demise of Elena Hudson were dying down, and they needed something else to occupy their minds.  Neither one of them had a date for the dance yet, but there was still plenty of time.  Amberlee knew exactly who she wanted to go with, and with Elena well out of the picture a clear path had been created for her to make her move.  She knew that she was not the only member of Jay Patterson’s fan club,  all the girls at college liked him, and so did her regular circle of friends.  However Amberlee, knowing the male ‘species’ as she believed them to be, was convinced that she had the best chance of getting a date with him, because of her obvious attributes.

They entered the Diner and sat down, before haughtily ordering four sodas from the young waitress, who’d had to drop out of their college to work and support her family.  A frisson of delight ran through the four girls, when they saw that Jay Patterson was playing on the old nineteen fifties, pinball machine, with his goofy friend Kevin.

“I  totally told you he’d be here” said Tori to Amberlee, with a self satisfied look on her heart-shaped face.

Amberlee flushed.  She suddenly felt a little dizzy and she hoped that Jay had noticed her arrival.  Her three friends started whispering and giggling and she wished that they would behave more maturely, she so wanted to appear sophisticated.  She watched from the corner of her eye, as Jay bent his long lean body over the pinball machine.  However it was Kevin, not his friend who acknowledged her existence, with a wink and a keen look of interest.

“Ask him to be your date for the dance,” said Judi with a breathless eagerness in her voice.  She was a shy timid girl who felt safer sitting on the sidelines, and watching life happening to other people.

“Yeah go on, we dare you!” chorused the other girls, secretly hoping that Jay would reject her.  In truth, they all would have like to see Amberlee Robinson being taken down a peg or two.

“I can’t do that! Not in front of everyone!” protested Amberlee.

“But there’s only us here and his friend, you don’t want to ask  him at college with all those pretty girls around.”  Tori was goading her now.

Amberlee considered that she could lose face in front of her three friends, and that would be unbearable.  She felt that she was the queen amongst them, and had always treated them as her ladies in waiting, their only purpose in life was to be at her beck and call.  However she knew that she couldn’t not ask Jay for a date now.  Her constant boasting about how irresistible she was had finally come back to haunt her, and now she had to prove it.  She stood up and sauntered over to Jay and Kevin, feeling nothing of the confidence that she was trying to portray.  The other girls were watching on the edge of their seats as if waiting for the climax, in a well publicised, popular movie.  Amberlee knew that she had her work cut out.  She had seen how the untouchable Jay Patterson had been with Elena Hudson, on the night of her disappearance.  She had never seen him pay any real attention to a girl before that night, and she had felt really jealous.  She, like many of the other girls had tried to get Jay to notice her on many occasions.  Her skirts had got shorter, and she wore her necklines very low just for him, despite the freezing cold weather.  She would travel to college in an outfit, that met the approval of her mother, and would change before she went to class, just for Jay’s benefit.  She had really got it bad for him.  Now for the moment of truth.  Amberlee was glad that she’d had her hair washed and conditioned at the weekend.  She thought it looked great, and had received many compliments, which was compensation for that crazy hair stylist who had almost drowned her while washing her hair.  She wished Kevin would stop looking at her as if she was the Diner’s special meal of the day, and leave her alone with Jay.  She wished that he would look at her in the same way he had looked at Elena Hudson.  He had his back to her, and continued playing on the pinball machine, even though Kevin was nudging him to alert him of her approach.

Kevin was hoping that Amberlee had come to talk to him but he knew better.  His buddy Jay was so cool and standoffish, but it drove the chicks crazy.  He had tried to play it cool many times around girls, but it had never worked and he thought that it was because he didn’t possess Jay’s long, lean body and broody good looks.   Jay was always telling him that he just needed to relax a little bit, but Kevin was convinced that to get a girl he would have to put in a lot of effort.  He glanced over at Tori, Judi and Libby who continued to watch the proceedings, and thought that Jay couldn’t have all of them....

“Hi Jay, what’s up?”  Amberlee plastered a smile on her lips, she thought she sounded cool and had hidden her nerves well.  She would have been a lot happier if her friends suddenly lost interest in what she was about to do, but instead she could feel their eyes boring into her back.  Jay responded with an unenthusiastic ‘hey.’  He knew that it was her making her way over to them, because Kevin had quietly informed him that the stacked chick looked like she wanted something.  He was well aware of what Amberlee Robinson wanted from him.  She had taken any chance she could to brush up against him, or drop her books so that he would bend down and pick them up for her.  He had also seen her frustration when he didn’t respond to her covert advances, and he knew that when she emerged from the bathroom, changed in her revealing clothes, it was just for him.  The guys all thought he was crazy, not to take full advantage of the situation, but that was something he had no intention of doing.

“Hey Amber” said Kevin pleasantly.  Jay smiled inwardly, Kevin was like a broken record when it came to girls.

“It’s Amberlee” she snapped impatiently, wishing that Kevin would get the hint and disappear.

“Jay can I ask you something?”

“Sure” said Jay and he turned to face her.  “What is it?”

“Have you got a date for the college dance next week?”

Jay shook his head. He knew what was coming next, and he quickly scrambled around in his head for an excuse.  Amberlee was thrilled when he said no to that question, the coast was clear.

“I’ll go with you if you like” she said after quickly plucking up some much needed courage.  She saw the refusal in his expression before he answered.

“Thanks for the offer but I don’t think I’m going.”

Kevin shot him a look.  They had talked about going that same morning, Kevin was really looking forward to it.  Amberlee hid her inward devastation well, but his flat refusal had hit her like a train, because she was a girl who was used to getting almost everything that she wanted.  She suddenly felt very foolish and obvious standing there in front of him in her short skirt, especially with the below zero temperatures outside.  But then the thought of telling her friends that it was a complete no no, was enough for her to regain her composure.