Vampire Blood (16 page)

She’d finished painting the last of the rear wall of the Albers’ house. The work was finished. Every last piece of trim, windowsill, even the gazebo. It looked lovely. The best job they’d ever done, and Jenny had completed it through her tears.

“Because it’s the sheriff and his deputies’ job, and they’re doing the best they know how, Jenny. We can’t do any better. You tried, and what good did it do except to wear you out? We’re finishing the job we started, because it’s all we can do right now.” Her father’s face was lined with worry and dogged persistence.

It was Saturday, and the Albers had been missing five days. Still not a trace, not a clue to what might have happened to them.

Sheriff Samuels continued his investigation, growing more desperate every day, but as yet hadn’t discovered a single solid lead.

The Albers seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth.

Jenny was a wreck. At night, at home in her trailer, she still tried to call the Albers. No one ever answered. Some mornings she woke up from frightful nightmares, her pillow wet. Every day as they worked on the house, she’d stare in the windows, as if she expected to see their faces at any moment.

She hadn’t asked her father to break in again. When the sheriff had left that day, he’d locked the door behind them, and it was still locked. Jenny couldn’t bring herself to go in there.

She couldn’t believe they were gone. It was incomprehensible. What had happened to them? Had they been eaten by a black hole or abducted by aliens? Where were they?

“If they never come back?” Jenny asked of her father.

“We go on, girl, we go on. They wouldn’t want us to make ourselves sick, would they?”

“No, I suppose not.” Jenny walked over to the back porch steps and settled herself on the bottom one. She fought to hold her tears back as she looked at the beautiful house and at the overgrown weeds around them. No one had cut the grass in over a week, and the yard looked as sad as she felt.

Her father cleaned up the paint equipment with the garden hose and came to sit next to her. He slid his arm around her shoulder gently.

“I hate to see such a long face on you, girl. It’s God’s will, whatever’s happened, Jenny. What will be, will be.”

Jenny lowered her head and cried. “I just have this awful feeling,” she moaned. “They’re ... dead. I’ll never see them again.”

He let her cry, comforting her as best he could. He could have lied to her and said he didn’t believe they were dead, but he didn’t.

Afterwards they packed their stuff up, and he drove her home.

As he let her off at the trailer, he reminded her, “We’ll start the theater on Monday. I’ve been by there, and the electricity is on. Talked to the electrician and the plumber, and they said it’s a green light. The plumbing and wiring were in amazingly good condition in spite of the theater’s age. They gave me the bills. I promised I’d deliver them to Mister Michelson when I see him next.”

Jenny nodded, her face tear-streaked. It’d been difficult working on the Albers’ place under the circumstances, but far worse knowing that it was finished, and they wouldn’t be going back. Maybe never.

In front of her trailer, she waved at him as the station wagon rattled away.

Grabbing the mail out of her mailbox next to the front door, she went inside.

Another letter from Jeff. The postmark closer though. Unlike the first one, she didn’t open it, or read it, but like the first letter, she tore it into tiny bits and dumped it into the trash can underneath the kitchen sink.

She wanted nothing to do with the man who hadn’t loved her enough to stay with her and Samantha all those years ago. He was dead to her, and dead was the way he was going to stay. That way he could never break her heart again.

She had enough grief in her life right now.

It rained all day Sunday. Jenny holed up, moping in her trailer. She called the Albers’ house twice. No answer. She telephoned Sheriff Samuels. Still no leads.

Since their disappearance, she’d driven aimlessly night after night around town, asking if anyone had seen her missing friends. She’d driven into the country outside of town and searched everywhere, not sure if she were searching for them or their bodies.

She knew it was useless, ridiculous, as she was doing it, but couldn’t stop herself. She was now too discouraged and exhausted, to do it any longer. She didn’t even feel like talking to Joey or hanging out with him at the diner.

Monday morning she was ready when her father honked out front. She wouldn’t admit it, even to herself, but she was excited about working on the Rebel. In her heart, she hoped it would help keep her mind off her missing friends and the growing unease she’d begun to feel deep inside. Something wasn’t right, yet she just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

It was drizzling, but their work would be inside so it wouldn’t affect them.

“We’ll stop at the hardware store first and pick up the supplies. They’ll be waiting for us. I took care of it on Friday after work,” her father stated.

“Everything we’ll need?”

“Most everything.”

After the hardware store, they had breakfast at Joey’s. Jenny could hardly eat. She left two thirds of the food on the plate. Joey wasn’t happy.

When they walked into the theater, and her dad switched on the electricity, she gasped, “It looks like it did when I was a kid! It’s hardly changed at all.”

“Kinda dim bulbs, though,” her dad remarked, checking one of them. “Forty-watt?”

Jenny wasn’t listening because she was poking around the place. She wandered into the vast auditorium and looked around before she met up with her father again.

“The screen is in pretty good shape, considering. The curtains are tatters, though. Whew! And the dust!” She sneezed.

“Gonna need some more light,” he said flatly.

“You think so?”

A snort. “Yep. I’ll run back to the hardware store for brighter bulbs, and you can start cleaning.” He handed her a broom.

“Okay, Dad.”

“When we have the place cleaned up, we can begin repairing and repainting.”

Jenny smiled at him as he slipped out the door into the rainy day.

When she was alone, she cocked her head and listened. The eerie silence was almost nerve racking after all she’d gone through the last week.

Exhaling deeply, she unpacked the cleaning supplies and the huge plastic bags she’d collect the trash in and went to one of the bathrooms to get a bucket of water for the sponges and mops.

She began to sweep, humming aloud, to help chase away the tomblike stillness.

Her dad returned, and they spent the day working. No one disturbed them except Joey, who sweetly brought them a sort of picnic lunch from his restaurant: fried chicken, potato salad and large paper cups of cold lemonade.

The next two days were the same. They worked diligently on the theater, marveling at how beautiful it was becoming as each layer of grunge was scrubbed away.

Sheriff Samuels kept her informed, as if he thought she could help him solve the mystery. It always amazed her that people thought she was someone with all the answers, someone smarter than a normal person simply because she’d written books at one time. Ha, they had no idea how wrong they were.

There’d been more people disappearing, more animal deaths and strange sightings. One old woman swore she’d seen these
ghostlike
things peering in her windows at her, trying to get in. According to the woman, she waved a blessed crucifix in their faces and—poof—they’d flown off! Preposterous.

Jenny tried to work and not think about the Albers or any of the other stuff. It just drove her crazy.

“I wonder where the Michelsons are?” she asked their third day at the theater. “Have you seen or heard anything from them, Dad?”

“No, not really.” He was painting the lobby walls. “Must trust us.”

“I hope they haven’t done a disappearing act, too,” Jenny muttered under her breath, with sudden trepidation, as she stared back at her dad.

“Naw. They’re fine, Jenny,” he reassured her, throwing her a nervous glance.

Probably thinks I’m cracking up,
she sighed inwardly.

“There was a message left for us at the hardware store this morning from them when I went to get more light bulbs, along with our pay for the last two days. I don’t know how they know how many hours we put in, but the money is exactly what they owe us.” He made a bemused face over his shoulder at her.

“It’s a good thing, too,” she told him. “I can use the money. Got an electric bill that’s due next week.”

Her dad bringing up the light bulbs jogged her memory.

Every morning when they came in, they’d had to replace the light bulbs they’d put in the day before. The hundred and fifty watters they were putting in to be able to see by were usually replaced with forty or twenty-five watters.

“Maybe the Michelsons come by to see how the work’s progressing, and they don’t like the bright lights?” she’d offered as explanation. “Sensitive to light or something. Some people are, you know.”

“Now that’s just plain silly,” her father had replied. “Their potential customers aren’t going to want to stumble around in the half dark, now are they?”

“I guess not.”

Then he’d joked that beginning the next day, when they left, he was going to take the bright bulbs out each night and hide
them and screw the dimmer bulbs back in until the next day. She’d laughed at his idea then, but they’d started doing just that.

Her dad patted his pocket. “Message also said they’d see us soon, and that they were extremely busy out of town. They were sorry they haven’t been more help to us.”

Busy at what?
Jenny pondered.

The place was beginning to shape up, though, even without them helping. The lights shone brightly off the Windexed mirrors. The shampooed carpets and the fresh paint made the lobby look virtually new.

They usually worked each day until around six. One night the first week they got carried away, and when Jenny finally stole a glance at her watch, she was surprised to see that it was after eight o’clock.

“It must be nearly dark outside.” Jenny swiped her hand across her grimy cheek.

“Yep,” her father responded tiredly. “Let’s pack it up and call it a day, Jenny. Tomorrow we’ll finish the lobby and start on the auditorium.”

“You got it, Dad.” Jenny stood up, stretching her aching body. She looked around approvingly for a moment or two and then started putting things away. For a little while, she’d almost forgotten the Albers.

She was about ready to go when she heard the crying. It was instantly muffled, but she was sure she’d heard it. Someone was sobbing somewhere as if they were in anguish. Jenny listened, it didn’t come again.

“Dad, did you hear that ... crying... just now?”

Her dad raked the back of his hand against the stubble on his face and looked around. “Nope, I didn’t—I don’t—hear a thing.” He was tired. He wanted to go home.

A violin began to sing softly. It was impossible to tell where it was coming from.

“I hear that, though,” her father said. “Mighty pretty, too. I imagine our employer is around somewhere.” He’d begun to take out the stronger light bulbs and was replacing them with the dimmer ones.

“I imagine, too.” Jenny gathered up the bucket and the sponges. The music climbed and ebbed hauntingly in the background as she carried them into the women’s restroom to rinse out. When she reentered the faintly lighted lobby, her father was gone, and she practically bumped into Terry Michelson.

“Excuse me!” Jenny blurted out, flustered. “It’s so dark in here, I didn’t see you.”

“Jenny. Good, you’re still here. I had an appointment, so I came in early.”

“We should have been gone, but we lost track of the time. Dad’s somewhere around here. An appointment?” she queried.

“I had a projection specialist, a Mister Maxwell, come in this evening and give me an estimate on updating the old projection booth upstairs.” His manner was friendly. “That ancient reel-to-reel setup has to be replaced with something more modern. It’s been here since the theater opened, I’m sure.” He laughed. “There’s so much new technology these days.” He was staring at her again in that intense way he had. “I have so much to relearn if I’m going to be able to run the films myself, which I plan to do.”

“New equipment will be expensive.”

“It will, but it’s worth it. I want the best.”

She eyed him curiously. “Mister Michelson, where did you come from just now?” She hadn’t seen him come in, or the mysterious Mister Maxwell.

“Upstairs. I’ve been here for a while. I used the back entrance.” His hair was mussed, his face white as he stood poised at the bottom of the staircase not more than three feet from her. He was dressed as usual in an antiquated suit. The material much too heavy for August. In his right hand he held books and in his left, his violin and bow.

“I heard your violin. Your playing really is lovely.”

“Thank you, Jenny.”

She put the clean sponges in the empty bucket, and aware of how ragged she must look in her filthy blue jeans and T-shirt, pushed the hair back from her dirty forehead. She tilted her head away from him and cleaned a little of the dirt off her face with licked fingers.