Vampire Blood (18 page)

No!

He turned on the Albers,
“Go away! You ruined it. You scared her away. You don’t belong here.”
His tears leaked slowly out of the corners of his eyes.

They were his friends. They were begging him for his help. They were lost.

How could he be so cruel as to send them away?

I’m sorry,
he moaned in his sleep.
Sorry. I’ll help you. I’ll look harder for you. Just don’t leave. Don’t die. What can I do?
he begged them to tell him, but it was too late, they’d already vanished.

It was dark outside, that inky blackness that comes after two o’clock, but before dawn, when the scratching at the window yanked him from his dream. Perhaps he imagined it as he was awakening. That was what they say happens. You dream dreams in those split seconds before you truly awake, in that twilight time between deep sleep and consciousness.

Drowsy and heavy-lidded, he was aware of the muted faces swirling in the ivory mist at the window before he actually saw them. They were leering at him with feral grins and sharp teeth.

Beckoning to him.

Startled, he sprung up in bed, an animated dummy on strings. When his eyes finally focused, whatever he thought he’d seen at the window was gone. He lay back down, releasing a long sigh. It must have been part of his crazy dream.

Almost asleep again, the rocks that came noisily hurtling through the windowpane brought him out of bed like an angry jack-in-the-box. Glass exploded everywhere.

He snatched up his glasses from the dresser and shoved them on.

“Heaven help us! A man can’t even be left in peace with his own dreams, in his own bed,” he whined peevishly, prancing around in his long johns. He was halfway to the closet where he kept his old buckshot rifle when the next volley of rocks came through the other bedroom window.

“What a mess,” he groaned, as he sidestepped the broken glass.

“Get away! Get away, you lousy kids, before I call the cops on ya!”
he shrieked at the glassless window.

Outside, he could hear footfalls and muffled laughter. He had the premonition then that they weren’t children. Not by a long shot.

He dragged the rifle from the closet, slammed the door and hightailed it out of the room towards the back of the house. Snapping on the outside lights, he cursed when they burned out amidst loud popping noises; then, as another rock sailed through the back door’s windowpane, he lit out the door into the backyard.

Barefooted, he ran as quickly as the stubby grass, his age and darkness would let him. Of course, he had no intention of really hurting any of them. He just wanted to give ‘em a good scare
and send them on their way. He’d broken his share of windows in his younger days, too.

At the end of the yard, by the tall weeds, he made out lighter shapes bouncing around, taunting him. One moment the luminous fleeing forms were ahead of him, and the next, they were behind and around him. Unnatural. Grabbing at him and letting go, so that he almost tripped.

They seemed to
float,
hidden in the mist that clung to the bushes and the grass. Playing a sort of ghostly tag with him.

Ernest rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He stood there, shaking. His self-righteous anger was slowly beginning to evolve into something else— a cold sweaty dread.

They weren’t human.

Something crashed into him, and he was tossed into the air. When he hit the ground, with a grunt of pain, there was no one, nothing, near him. Only sarcastic laughter. Ernest knew that what was stalking him wasn’t merely playing with him. It was deadly serious.

He scrambled up from the ground and raised his rifle. “I’m warning ya. I’ve got a gun. I’ll shoot!
Get out of here and leave me alone. Ya hear? Or I’ll use it!” His voice trembled no matter how hard he tried not to let it.

His left leg was hurting like hell. His side pained him something awful, and he could feel something warm and sticky trickling down the side of his neck. Blood.

No answer, but they were still out there, he could smell ‘em.

He limped back towards the safety of the house, one hand gripping the gun. He was panting with fear, afraid to look behind him.

He never made it.

“I’ll shoot, I will!”
he cried out as the shapes converged on him again. He shot the gun into what he thought was a body. He shot again and again, until the weapon was empty, his horror growing. The gun dropped into the grass.

He screamed for help again and again. His pitiful cries echoed on the still night across the fields and the trees. He’d hit some of them, he was sure of it.

Still, they were coming at him.

Something lifted him from the ground, and for a few horrifying moments, he was pitched from one set of strong ghostly arms to another like a human ball, squealing like a trapped pig.

When they dropped him this time, he lay in a heap groaning as if he couldn’t move any longer, faking it, fearing most of his poor old bones were broken. His eyes peeked into the darkness.

The shapes were somehow human figures in the mist—but not human. The scent of blood was strong on the night air, and so was his terror. Ernest Lacey had never been frightened a day in his long life, but he was terrified
now.

They were going to kill him. He knew it. Whatever the hell they were.

Damn.
He didn’t want to die. Not now. Not like this. They evaporated before his astonished eyes. Their disdain snarls on the wind.

Whimpering, he crawled for the back door, slid into the kitchen, and with trembling hands, swatted it shut, locking it. He dragged himself to the bedroom, locking every door on the way, praying.

He hid under his bed, shaking like a cold puppy and muttering to himself like a crazy man. He must have dozed off, for when he came to, he had the feeling that time had passed.

“Maybe I dreamed it,” he told himself, desperately wanting to believe it.

Nightmared it,
is more like it.

Except the blood, the pain, was real.

Sore, filthy, he crept out from under the bed and staggered to the window, every sense screaming for him not to, but something stronger drawing him to it. He gaped out at the lightening sky, his heart galloping. His mouth like sandpaper.

His face went white as he tried to tear his gaze away, but couldn’t. His eyes grew large, his mouth fell open, and with a yell of sheer panic and a sickening whooshing sound, he was sucked through the broken window like one of those astronauts in outer space, who’ve had a hole blown out of their capsule.

Just like that. The room was empty. The night still again.

Outside, the mist laughed and then grew quiet.

A red-stained window curtain fluttered gently against the broken glass in the gentle morning breeze.

Chapter Nine

August 29

Friday morning Jenny waited until nine-thirty before she jumped in her car and drove over to her dad’s.

He was supposed to have picked her up at seven. With his recent accident and unexplained lethargy still fresh in her mind, she wasn’t taking any chances. He might have had a relapse. All the stress over the Albers being missing hadn’t helped any, either.

His station wagon was parked as usual in the rickety garage.

She knocked on the kitchen door. No answer. Then she noticed that the window pane was broken. With a shove, the door opened. It hadn’t been locked.

“That’s not like him,” she mumbled, as she tiptoed into the kitchen, her nerves tingling.

As her eyes examined the room, unsettling images of the Albers’ house as they’d found it eleven days ago nagged at her.

She crouched down on the floor by the door, balancing on the balls of her feet, and skimmed her fingers carefully over the faded linoleum. There were dried dirt, grass and straw bits among the glass. Blood skids trailed from the door to the middle of the kitchen, as if some wounded thing had scooted inside and dragged itself across the floor.

Jenny stood up slowly, her heart pounding.

“Dad,” she sobbed deep in her throat, her body shaking as if she’d taken a chill. She wasn’t sure how, but she made it through the rest of the house, ending up in the bedroom.

The windows were broken, glass fragments all over. The unmade bed.

Jenny’s muscles clenched, her stomach cramped with an escalating dread. She stumbled towards the window nearest the bed. There was blood dribbled over the spiked slivers, as if some unfortunate creature had been impaled on them.

She bent over and picked up her father’s glasses. The white tape was torn, and the glasses were smashed. Wherever her father was, he didn’t have them and he was as blind as a mole in sunlight without them.

She was shaking uncontrollably and crumpled down upon the bed, folded her arms around herself, and rocked, keening beneath her sobs.

Daddy, I should have moved in with you. I should have been here. I should have protected you.

Her father was gone, too, now. She was sure of it. Whatever had happened to the Albers had happened to him. She felt it.

What was happening here? Was it really what the authorities suspected: some hellish, brutal satanic cult of some kind taking random victims, mutilating, abducting and maybe killing them?

Maude hadn’t believed a cult was behind any of it, though, and Jenny somehow didn’t either.

It wasn’t something as simple as a cult. What cult would so openly defy the authorities? What cult would risk being hunted down because they had taken too many visible victims, too quickly?

Who
or
what
was
doing this and
why?

Jenny gritted her teeth to stop their chattering and forced herself to get up.

Pull yourself together.

Her father wasn’t anywhere in or around the house, she’d made sure of it. She took one last look anyway before she left and drove to Joey’s.

* * * *

“Joey?” Jenny reached over the counter to touch her brother on the sleeve from behind. He’d been talking to someone in the kitchen, giving orders or something. There were gravy stains on his white apron.

The place was basically empty. Only a few people. The early breakfast crowd had already eaten and departed; the late breakfast crowd hadn’t arrived yet. It smelled like fresh brewed coffee and bacon. Jenny’s stomach growled and her mouth watered.

“Jenny. Kind of late for breakfast, aren’t you?” He peered around her. “Where’s Dad?”

Her face must have shown her distress, and the tears escaped her swollen eyes, tracking down her cheeks.

“Jenny!” Alarmed, Joey grabbed her arms across the counter. “What’s wrong?”

“He isn’t here, is he?” The hope was washing from her eyes with the tears. She brushed his grip away and lowered her head into her trembling hands. Her shoulders shook.

“No, he isn’t,” Joey stammered, coming around the counter. He corralled her and sat her down forcibly on a stool.

“What the hell is wrong now? Did he have another accident?” Joey’s face was tense. His eyes wary.

Jenny’s face reflected her shock. “No. Worse,” she sniffled. “He’s
missing!
Just like the Albers.
Gone.”
She spread her hands and made a futile gesture. “Not there, not here, not anywhere.”

“What are you babbling about?” Joey demanded, shaking her, probably afraid she was losing it.

There were people staring at them now.

“Oh God
.” Jenny maneuvered off the stool. “I have to go look for him! I thought he might be here, having breakfast. Maybe he forgot me, you know he hasn’t been himself lately? He’s been so forgetful? I had hoped,” her eyes were that of a cornered animal as she scanned the restaurant, “he would—” She couldn’t go on and realized she was acting crazy. Her legs suddenly felt like jelly.

Joey still had his hands on her shoulders, and he turned her to face him. Something seemed to be warring inside him. It showed on his face. “Calm down, Sis. You’re not going anywhere. It’ll be okay, I promise.” Joey’s eyes said something different. He was scared, too. “Sit down.” He plunked her back on the stool. “I’ll get you some coffee, it’ll calm you, and you can tell me what happened. Then we can decide what to do next. I only wish I had a shot of good Irish whiskey to give you, but I don’t serve booze here.”

“I look that bad?” Jenny asked, between sniffles.

“Yep.”

The cup of coffee trembled at her lips a moment later, as Joey waited patiently for the recounting of her story. She couldn’t stop shaking as she told it.

“There was blood all over his bedroom window,” she finished.

“Good Lord,” her brother swore. “Did you look everywhere, Jenny?” Despair in his voice.

“Yes. Everywhere. Joey, he isn’t
there.”

“Have you looked anywhere else besides here?”

“No.” Jenny gulped down the rest of the coffee. Joey got her another cup. “I had better go. Look some more.” She stood up, and this time the determination in her stance told her brother that he wouldn’t be able to stop her.