Stake

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Having grown up in Iowa where the farmland fringes of the city were called the ‘incorporated area’ for tax purposes, Lexi had always felt frustrated there. She was too much of a free spirit to thrive in the rural Midwest. Teresa had known it, too. After only two years of college, Lexi found a job as a contractor for PRUUF and several internet security services. She had traded cornfields for the mountains and rarely turned her gaze east. She had promised Teresa she would leave Dubuque.

  Her father, Perry, had his own small insurance agency in Dubuque. Her mother, Sharon, did clerical work for the State of Iowa. Lexi cringed when her mother called herself a secretary. Perry and Sharon Tarada were strait-laced and conservative, and they firmly believed in an America that matched what they saw all around them. But they had never seen any other part of the country. They promised to visit Lexi out in Colorado someday, though the thirteen-hour drive intimidated them.

  ‘So how are things back home?’ Lexi asked, which released a stream of stories about people she barely remembered from high school: who got married, who got arrested for drunk driving, who got injured in a tractor accident. Apparently, the senior class president was running for mayor, the youngest ever, but Lexi’s mother was sure he would never win because he had ‘gotten that girl pregnant and had to marry her’.

  As Lexi listened and made appropriate noises, she distracted herself by going on HideTruth. She scrolled through the comments, looking at more discussions about vampires hidden in society. She found one more posting about the Bigfoot rapist, though that thread had mostly died.

  When her dad finished talking about his latest fishing trip, Lexi interrupted with a more serious topic. ‘And how are you feeling, Mom? How’s the chemo?’

  ‘Oh, you know, mostly finished. I have good days and bad days, but at least I’m losing some weight.’

  ‘You didn’t need to lose any weight. What did the oncologist say?’

  ‘He said it’s doing fine. I go in for another scan in a month, then I can give you all the details.’

  Lexi knew she would never get the details. Her mother was being treated for breast cancer, and Lexi had no idea how serious it was because her parents brushed aside any explanations. They thought talking about breasts was inappropriate, and neither of them had much medical knowledge. They trusted doctors too much, assuming they were all like TV show doctors; they accepted whatever the oncologist said, without asking for more information. Lexi kept sending them links so they could do their own homework, but she doubted they followed up on them.

  ‘Please take care of yourself,’ she said, knowing it was the best she could do. ‘Eat healthy and let me know whatever you find out.’ She put an edge in her voice. ‘And get details.’

  ‘Since when did you become a doctor, dear?’

  There was no point in pursuing that argument. Her mother had never had an independent opinion in her life. Her gruff father had enough opinions for both of them, and that turned any conversation into a minefield. He and Lexi had gotten into plenty of arguments when she still lived at home – another reason she didn’t want to move back. Now, they kept their safe distance and trod carefully in conversations.

  ‘Are you dating anyone yet?’ Sharon asked. ‘You’re such a smart, pretty girl.’

  ‘Oh, no one special.’ The answer was just plain ‘No’, but her careful phrasing left enough doubt in her parents’ minds that they didn’t pester her. ‘You sure there’s nothing going on with that handsome Blair? He’s always very nice and polite.’

  ‘He certainly is,’ Lexi said. ‘But no, there’s nothing going on. He’s just a housemate, helps to pay the bills.’

  When he had first moved into the small house, her parents had been convinced the two were living together as a couple, that Lexi wasn’t telling them everything. Perry and Sharon struggled to be understanding, but they didn’t believe her reassurances. Being from rural Iowa, they had no gaydar whatsoever. Lexi couldn’t explain that to them either, because her parents would have even more of a problem knowing there was a gay man in the same house.

  She did try to date, but her success rate was not inspiring. She was attractive and had varied interests, but once the men found out about HideTruth, they treated her differently. Most became condescending, and she questioned the judgement of the ones who thought the conspiracy stuff was cool, the ones who believed everything posted on the site. She had enough to worry about without throwing another stalker into the mix.

  While she studied the potential mysteries in the world, with an open mind and jaded eyes, the true believers could be just plain scary. Some items were clearly gags – ‘Bat Boy Gets a New Puppy’ for instance – but other conspiracy fanatics spread violent memes. They attacked random targets, often celebrities, attempting to destroy careers with doctored and easily disproved evidence about white slavery rings or murderous pedophilia. Some trolls were truly vile, harassing the parents of school-shooting victims and claiming that their dead children were a hoax.

  Lexi wanted nothing to do with those people, and she refused to post such stories on HideTruth. This frustrated some of her followers, because they wanted to believe in their pet conspiracies, and then they wanted to argue about them …

  After ten minutes, the conversation with her parents petered out. They admonished her to be careful. Lexi was surprised the staker had gotten play on the Iowa television news, and then she smiled. ‘Are you reading my website? I posted the story there with all the details.’

  ‘Not regularly,’ her father said. ‘It seems pretty far out.’

  She didn’t point out some of the crazier things her parents blithely swallowed from the fringe cable news they watched. ‘I’ll watch out for Bigfoot and vampires – as long as you do, too.’ They chuckled, but the joke was strained.

  Lexi hung up, tired, but the phone call was a weekly obligation, now fulfilled. She would never admit this to her parents, but she knew she had to be careful. HideTruth’s core audience could be vicious junkyard dogs, scrappers fighting against anyone who ridiculed them. Lexi walked a fine line because they were her junkyard dogs. She was skeptical, but they knew that she was honest and open-minded. They respected that, but she didn’t doubt for a minute that they would turn on her if she took a wrong stance.

  She had already learned that once.

  Her stalker had been a cruel, faceless man named Richard Dover, an intense believer who objected to the fact that she had mocked a particularly asinine conspiracy theory about lizard people. He had been indignant, argued with her, insulted her, and Lexi made the mistake of fighting back.

  Since his public name was Richard Dover, she shortened it to Dick Dover, which quickly degenerated into Dicked Over. She meant to be sarcastic, but it just looked immature on her part. Dicked Over didn’t take it well. He had harassed her mercilessly, trolling her website. Each time she deleted his profile, he reestablished it within minutes. He was smart, too, and dodged her IP address searches.

  Even though Lexi was careful never to make her home address public, such information was impossible to hide from a true conspiracy theorist. She understood how resourceful they could be, especially a maladjusted cyberstalker like Dicked Over. When she pinged and found that some of his postings came from Colorado, Lexi grew worried. She spent so much time home alone, and even when Blair was there, she didn’t think a bad guy would find him very intimidating.

  For a couple of weeks she convinced herself that Dicked Over was probably just a fat thirty-year-old virgin living in his parents’ basement, but his harassment didn’t stop. In fact, his comments escalated. Finally, Lexi posted on her own site, seeking advice. ‘I’m considering buying a handgun for personal protection. I hope I never have to use it at all, but I want it handy in case some dick threatens me.’ She used the word ‘dick’ on purpose. ‘Any suggestions?’

  Now that had engaged her fans! She foolishly expected clear recommendations, maybe some comparative discussion, but the boards exploded with comments, vehement advice and
outright verbal brawls. If she’d asked for suggestions about fishing poles, she would have gotten a couple of responses, but this!

  After a day of endless debate, Lexi typed, ‘You guys sure are obsessive about your guns!’ She stared at the screen for a long moment, then deleted the comment without posting it, since it would only throw gasoline on the discussion.

  Ruger, Beretta, Smith and Wesson, Glock, Sig Sauer, model numbers and calibers that meant nothing to her. After the debate wound down, then wound in circles, she narrowed her choices, went to one of the many local shooting ranges, and finally settled on a .38 Special Revolver. It worked, and she needed something she could get out of her nightstand drawer if Dicked Over came to the house.

  Lexi hoped never to fire it, but she damn well wanted to know how to use it. After buying the gun, she’d gone to the shooting range twice, went through two boxes of bullets, enough to get herself comfortable with the weapon. She’d chosen the revolver because she needed a gun she could grab, point, and shoot.

  The third time she went, to test herself in a worst-case situation, she gulped four cans of Mountain Dew, ate two candy bars, then walked at a fast pace four blocks to the shooting range. By the time she arrived, she was in the right condition for a real-life scenario – jittery, sweaty, out of breath. It had been great practice.

  After her extensive public discussion on handguns, though, Dicked Over dropped off the site and never harassed her again. She kept the weapon at her bedside just in case. Yes, there was a murderer in Colorado Springs who had pounded a stake through his victim’s heart, and yes, she covered stories about UFO abductions and Bigfoot and lizard people.

  But Lexi was far more afraid of crazy stalkers, because she knew for a fact they were real.

  ELEVEN

  The noisy D&R lumberyard was surrounded by gravel mounds and vacant lots. Forklifts moved lumber around, loading big deliveries on flatbed trucks for home construction projects or dropping smaller loads in pickup beds for DIY enthusiasts.

  Detective Carrow didn’t have many leads, and he hoped he might at least find some hint about the origin of the stake. If it was a gangland killing, like Chop Chop in Pueblo, gang members often worked in construction. He hoped to find a viable clue, but that was a long shot. It wouldn’t be difficult for anybody to find a scrap piece of wood.

  He pulled his beige Ford Taurus into the gravel parking lot near the office trailer. On stacks of two-by-fours and islands of plywood sheets, he easily spotted the lime-green marker paint used to identify lots. Construction workers in dark jeans, sturdy work boots, and gloves moved boards off a neat stack and clattered them into another pile. Carrow wore slacks, a dark gray jacket, and a nice shirt per CSPD policy, but he felt overdressed. He did not look like a customer as he sauntered toward the lumberyard office.

  The temporary trailer looked as if it had been there long enough to become a permanent part of the landscape. He stepped up the metal grate stairs and popped open the flimsy door, which swung wide with surprising ease. The lumberyard manager sat at an old desk with a ten-key adding machine punching in numbers from a handwritten ledger book. Three calendars from various insurance companies were thumbtacked to the plywood walls, each one showing a different month.

  The manager looked up. ‘Here to pick up an order?’

  ‘Here to ask a few questions.’

  The man looked disappointed. ‘Sure, I’m a regular answering service.’

  Carrow opened his badge wallet, got the man’s attention. ‘Some wood from your lumberyard was found at a crime scene, and I hope you can help me out. It’s my only lead, so any advice would be appreciated.’

  ‘What kind of crime?’ The man sounded eager now. ‘And how does my lumber figure into it?’

  Deciding the startle reflex might gain him cooperation, Carrow removed his manila folder and opened it to a color printout of the bloodstained stake and the line of green paint on the wood. ‘It was used in a murder.’

  ‘Holy shit, the stake guy?’ The manager picked up the photo. ‘Yeah, that green paint is ours. You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘Sherlock Holmes has more of a fan following,’ Carrow said. He’d never gained much recognition on his job. No one looking for fame and fortune would join the police force in a mid-sized city. After he caught the stake killer, he would probably end up on the TV news, but the publicity would blow over quickly enough, and public affairs would draw most of the attention. He had no delusions of making the talk show circuit or Dancing with the Stars, and he certainly wouldn’t attempt writing a book about it; he hated just typing up police reports.

  At forty-two, Todd Carrow realized whenever he looked in the mirror and saw his hair thinner than it used to be, the few extra pounds he had put on, the lines on his face starting to show ‘character’, that he could no longer pretend he was an up-and-coming guy. His ‘great future’ had divorced him and taken the two girls back to Pueblo. He was already who he was ever going to be, dancing on the edge of middle age, living alone in a sparsely furnished townhouse. So much for the Leave It to Beaver American dream scenario he’d expected.

  Well, shit happened and he had a job to do.

  The lumberyard manager held on to the photograph for a long time. ‘I bet it was pretty disgusting.’ He seemed to want more details. Carrow didn’t offer them.

  Even after a couple days of digging, he had found little information on the victim himself. Stallings had almost no connections in society, no known friends or family, no email account. The violence of the pounded stake suggested that the killer was malicious and furious, like Chop Chop. Did that mean Stallings had a well-hidden secret life? Gang or drug connections?

  The manager stood up from behind his desk, closed the ledger as if afraid someone might look at his penciled numbers. ‘Even if this is the right lumberyard, that won’t do you any good. D&R doesn’t have a special section for vampire stakes.’

  Carrow followed him out of the trailer. ‘Didn’t think so, but I have to take a look.’

  They walked across the hard-packed ground where heavy tires had pressed the dirt into cement. The smell of resiny sawdust mixed with the oily odor of diesel exhaust. The manager led him around islands of two-by-fours and two-by-eights until they reached the scrap pile, a mound of broken boards, marker stakes, and split posts – an endless supply of raw material that could be sharpened into stakes.

  ‘Take your pick, Detective. We have truckloads of scrap. If someone stole a few stakes from this pile, I’d never know. And there are dozens of construction sites and other scrap piles around the city using our lumber. Your murder weapon could have come from anywhere.’

  Carrow’s heart sank. ‘Don’t suppose you have security cameras?’

  ‘We do in the main yard, but this is just the garbage pile. Nothing worth watching here, and we reset the recording every two days. We’d know pretty damn quick if there were vandals from the night before.’

  Carrow stared at the wood, hoping some brilliant revelation would occur to him, but he saw only a mound of scraps. The murderer wouldn’t have any shortage of stakes if he decided to kill again.

  TWELVE

  Nobody noticed the nondescript Honda where it was parked. It could have sat there for months without being reported as abandoned, but Helsing located the vehicle in a poorly planned residential area constructed in the early 1970s. Oak trees had split the sidewalks, roots slowly erupting from the concrete. The street’s gutters were filled with dead leaves.

  Half a century earlier, these cookie-cutter duplexes must have made great starter homes for young families, but now they were run down with a high turnover of renters. The tenants had better things to do than pay attention to an old-model car left on a side street near no particular driveway.

  Members of the Bastion knew how to find such available vehicles left there for their use. Helsing walked casually along the sidewalk, glancing at the parked cars until he found one with a clumsy letter ‘C’ scratched beneath the back-pass
enger door handle. The mark looked as if some half-hearted vandal had keyed the paint but had run out of anger.

  Helsing opened the driver’s door, ducked to feel under the mat where he came up with the loose key. The engine coughed and then warmed up. The Honda still had nearly half a tank of gas, certainly enough for Helsing’s purposes.

  He drove through the residential streets with a list of addresses, potential targets he had collected through long research. This was part of the ‘stakeout’ process (and he acknowledged the irony of the term).

  In these days of working at home or online, it was far easier for the lampir to work a camouflage job that did not require venturing out during daylight hours. The options were dizzying to consider, and it had taken Helsing quite some time to narrow down the list of potential targets. Bartenders, hotel desk night clerks, third shift nurses or ambulance drivers, security guards, custodians, warehouse workers, department store shelf stockers, taxi drivers, online anything … It was a challenge to weed them out. Vampires were very skilled at hiding, but Helsing’s careful research winnowed the possibilities. He knew what to look for, and he would be a fool and a coward if he denied the evidence of his eyes.

  He had survived that horrific night in Bosnia for a reason. Drenched in blood that was not his own and aching from uncounted injuries, he had been dizzy, in shock as he fled the wrecked ambulance.

  Hearing the distant howl of wolves spurred him faster. His vision was blurred, doubled, and his head pounded. The silver light of the full moon provided enough illumination for him to pick his way down the slope to where he heard trickling water. A stream whispered and hissed over rocks.

  He, David Grundy, had stood motionless for a long moment, unable to decide whether or not to cross. Even thinking was such an effort. He dropped to his knees and splashed water on his face, washing away the blood that caked his eyes and forehead. The snowmelt water was as cold as death. He heard something move in the forest behind him, branches cracking, pebbles stirring, noises loud enough to be heard over the rushing stream. Some dark predatory presence hovered in the air.