Stake
Page 19
One of the first individuals, Tom Grollin, lived only a few blocks away on Cascade, and Carrow headed there first thing. It seemed the best place to get started. He doubted he could convince the chief to provide police protection for all the names in Helsing’s dossier. Fortunately, the suspected killer didn’t know that Carrow had his list, unless Alexis Tarada had told him – and she claimed to have had no further contact since the first meeting. If he found out that she had been communicating with Helsing in secret, aiding and abetting a murderer, he would arrest her so fast her feet wouldn’t even touch the ground.
At Grollin’s address Carrow found the locked street-level door and a set of intercom buttons for the tenants upstairs. He pressed the button marked Grollin several times, but received no response. The taxi driver had probably worked a long shift and might have fallen asleep. Carrow buzzed again and again, enough to wake someone who slept like the dead.
Still no response. Maybe Grollin wasn’t home? Maybe the intercom button was broken? Or it could have been something else. A chill went down his spine as he recalled Eldridge smoldering on the kitchen linoleum with a stake through his chest.
Unexpectedly, a woman pushed open the door, and he grabbed it before it could close. She wore a navy-blue pea coat and looked startled to see him there. He fumbled out his detective shield. ‘Detective Todd Carrow, CSPD. Looking for Tom Grollin. He doesn’t respond to the buzzer—’
The woman pointed up the stairs. ‘He’s in number four. I don’t see him much. Sorry, I’ve got to get to work.’ She hurried off, letting him slip inside.
Upstairs at the door of Grollin’s flat, Carrow rapped hard, but heard no response. He pounded harder. ‘Mr Grollin? Colorado Springs Police Department.’ He heard no noise, nothing stirring inside the apartment. In the small flat, no one could be very far from the door. Maybe Grollin was in the shower? On the toilet?
He smelled a distinctive flat copper scent, which prickled the hairs on his neck. ‘Hello, anybody home?’ He looked down and noticed a smear of red on the all-weather carpeting, like blood, maybe wiped from the sole of a shoe.
‘Mr Grollin!’ He tried the doorknob and surprisingly found it unlocked. With his hand on the butt of his revolver, he pushed his way in.
Morning sunlight streamed through the windows, but the stench of spattered blood struck him even harder. ‘Crap almighty!’
The scene was horrific, far worse than the two staked bodies he had found. The taxi driver’s head lay on the Murphy bed, his slack face staring upward. The headless body sprawled beside it. The sheets were pooled with deep red blood. Spatter covered the walls, the ceiling, the windows.
The blood on the dead man’s face sparkled, wet. His cheeks were rounded, stuffed with something, and Carrow guessed what he would find if he probed inside the dead man’s mouth.
His gaze tracked to the wall, to the glass of the windows. The droplets were still wet. Even with the morning sun shining on them, the blood hadn’t dried, which meant this killing had happened very recently, probably within the past hour … not long after sunrise.
He drew his weapon and slowly turned, alert, trying to sense if anyone was still there. The cramped apartment offered few places for a killer to hide. He listened, but nothing stirred. ‘Just missed him.’
Carrow immediately called in backup, knowing they would arrive within minutes. Considering the blood and violence of the scene, the killer had to be a dripping mess – easily spotted if he was still in the vicinity. Helsing would be running, hiding, trying to get away.
Carrow peered through the red specks on the window glass to the street below. The thick smell of blood in the air nauseated him, and he felt claustrophobic in the small flat. The furniture filled almost every square inch.
He went back to the body on the bed, saw marks on the shirt and chest, and realized that Helsing must have used the Taser again. As he turned slowly, absorbing the murder scene, he imagined Helsing lying in wait and pouncing as soon as Grollin walked through the door. If he’d been fast enough with the Taser, the neighbors might not have heard much of a struggle.
Carrow looked at the rolled-up window shades. Blood was on the glass, so the shades had been open during the murder. Had Helsing tried to stun the alleged vampire with bright sunlight? Then why use the Taser?
And why was he applying logic to an obviously insane man?
Two squad cars rolled up minutes later, sirens wailing. When he let them in through the tenants’ door and led them to the apartment upstairs, one of the men retched.
Carrow was eager to turn over the scene to the coroner and the techs. He knew that the serial killer, the ‘vampire hunter’, was responsible for at least four deaths, possibly more. The other potential victims had to be warned before it was too late. How many others had Helsing killed already?
He felt a sense of urgency. It was broad daylight in a clear blue sky – exactly the right conditions for a vampire hunter to kill again.
THIRTY-FIVE
When Lexi began to return to consciousness, she smelled wood smoke and heard muttering voices. She recalled trying to wake up several times before dropping back into a drugged stupor. A surge of fear purged the fog of grogginess, and she snapped her eyes open.
She had a splitting headache and a foul taste in her mouth. Blinking several times, she saw trees. Filtered sunlight. Blurry people.
Lexi remembered the abandoned buildings – and the sack over her head, the pungent sweet rag pressed against her mouth and nose, her deep, panicked breaths. Now she shivered, and her body wouldn’t quite function. She turned her head and groaned.
As her vision sharpened, Lexi found herself sitting in a canvas camp chair, with a blanket draped around her shoulders. She was surprised to find that her hands were unbound.
‘Lucius!’ a boy’s voice cried. ‘She’s waking up again!’
She was outside in the forest, in a camp of some kind. She saw cook fires, weathered picnic tables, colorful nylon tents as well as camouflage tarpaulins. She tried to lift herself out of the camp chair. Some vague flight instinct in the back of her mind made her want to run away, but her legs wouldn’t work. She couldn’t even stand.
When Lexi shook her head, pain throbbed inside her skull. She coughed, worked up a mouthful of saliva, and spat, but the horrible chemical taste only intensified. She fumbled for the jacket pocket where she had put her revolver, found it empty.
A big man loomed in front of her in a buffalo-plaid shirt and a fleece vest. He peeled off grimy canvas work gloves and tucked them into his jeans pockets. She thought she recognized him – big beard, blue black hair, and dark eyes – but the context was all wrong. She couldn’t place him.
‘I’m sorry about what we had to do, Miss Tarada. We didn’t think you would be unconscious for quite so long, but it’s not an exact process. You’ll feel the after-effects for a while. It is what it is.’ He gave her an apologetic smile. ‘We did not intend to hurt you, but we needed to talk. We couldn’t let you see where we really are or how to find us again.’
Now she remembered him: the homeless panhandler who had approached her at the coffee shop right after she met Simon Helsing. It’s all true, you know. Were they partners? They must know each other; it was too much of a coincidence.
‘My name is Lucius. I lead a group that we call the Bastion, off the grid and deep in the forest where it’s safe. In particular, where the vampires can’t find us.’ He lowered his voice. ‘We will survive whatever destroys mankind.’
Her voice was just a raspy croak, and she couldn’t form words.
‘Here, dear,’ said a matronly woman in her late forties, thick around the waist and hips from a life of hard work. She offered a speckled blue metal cup filled with water.
Lexi took a cautious sip, then drank several gulps. ‘What did … what did you do to me?’ She tried to put her thoughts in order, tried to remember. With a shock, she realized it was already morning. Had she been unconscious all night? Here in this place? ‘I
came to meet … Simon. Simon Helsing.’ She fumbled for her gun again, came up empty-handed.
‘He is part of our group, though an outlier,’ said Lucius. ‘We know he’s been in contact with you, and I’m watching you, too. I read HideTruth.’
The thought of anyone following her site from a wilderness camp that relied on cook fires and battery lanterns seemed as strange as any story she posted. But Lucius had also been in the city, and she guessed he could easily have used public-access terminals or a phone browser.
Lexi saw several dozen people in this camp, but she didn’t know how many more might be scattered in the forest. A crow cawed in the pine trees overhead. Morning sunlight filtered through the dense forest.
A dark-haired boy with Asian features stood next to Lucius, staring at her with wide eyes. He seemed afraid of Lexi. ‘Is she going to stay here with us? Or will we have to—’
Lucius put a large hand on the boy’s shoulder to silence him. ‘None of that, Joshua. We invited her here to talk, and we want her to listen. She should be on our side.’
‘I’m not staying here.’ Lexi tried to manage a threatening tone. ‘You drugged me, abducted me. You can’t hold me against my will.’
‘We could, but we won’t,’ Lucius said. ‘We want to talk with you. That’s why we sent you the letter.’
She calmed herself enough to think clearly. Of course they wanted to talk. They had lured her here for some reason, pretending to be Helsing. And she had come here to listen.
‘All right.’ Lexi took another sip of water, found herself waking up, her thoughts clearing. ‘You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.’
‘Yes we do,’ Lucius agreed.
‘You promised me evidence about the vampires. Witnesses.’
‘We have evidence, if your eyes are open to see it,’ he said.
The matronly woman went to a cook fire where a large pot sat on a grate, and she stirred some sort of savory-smelling soup or stew.
Lucius said, ‘The members of the Bastion are out here because we intend to survive. We see the dangers ahead. We know about the coming apocalypse.’
‘What apocalypse?’ On HideTruth and in her work for PRUUF, she was familiar with dozens of end-of-the-world scenarios, some of them scientifically valid, others ridiculous.
‘Should we prepare for only one? Humanity has already invented a dozen ways to destroy the world. Some disasters are instantaneous, some more subtle. You’ve heard them all. I know you have.’ He stroked his thick beard. ‘There are predators lurking in the world, Miss Tarada – many different kinds. They’ve been quiet for centuries, while humans developed their own ways to make themselves extinct. Civilization is unstable, naïve, oblivious. Something is going to happen. The dark ages are coming.’ Lucius leaned closer to where she sat in the camp chair. She instinctively pressed her back against the canvas and drew the blanket around her.
‘But the Bastion is going to survive.’ He gestured to the people who helped Mama prepare to serve the morning meal. ‘Groups like the Bastion exist in many places, all of them with disparate fears but a singular purpose. To survive.’
Lexi also knew about paranoid survivalist camps, and here in the huge Pike National Forest, the lack of any phone signal was just the smallest part of their isolation. In her research on Bigfoot and the assault on Holly Smith, she had read rumors of homeless camps deep in the woods. These people could pack up and vanish if they felt threatened.
Lucius nodded to a slouched Hispanic man tending a small campfire near his own tent. ‘Armand escaped from a FEMA camp and lived in hiding before he finally joined us, and the Bastion has protected him ever since.’ He turned his attention to a remarkably thin African-American woman, but the skittish woman ducked into a tent, as if she didn’t want to be noticed in any way. ‘Joy was part of a secret government breeding program, forced to bear five children from different fathers, all for some kind of experiments. But the last birth damaged her uterus, so they turned her loose to wander the streets. We found her, and we protected her.’
‘They?’ Lexi asked. ‘Who are they?’
Lucius scoffed. ‘There’s always a “they”.’
Lexi wanted to leave, to go back to her safe home, her own bed, a hot shower, clean clothes. Blair must be worried about her. ‘I came here on the promise of evidence about vampires. What do you have for me?’ She tried to put steel in her voice. ‘You faked that letter from Helsing, made me come out here. This better be good.’
Lucius showed a hint of an amused smile. ‘We didn’t make you come. We invited you.’
She shrugged the blanket off her shoulders and rose to her feet, bracing herself with the wobbly camp chair. Her legs were unsteady, but she was determined to meet him eye to eye. ‘The letter promised me proof and witnesses. After all this, I need to get something.’
‘I’ll give you the best proof I can offer. Maybe it will convince you, maybe it won’t. It is what it is.’ He turned to the woman by the cook fire. ‘Mama, is the soup ready? I’m sure our guest is hungry.’
Joshua and a young girl came on either side of Lexi, steadying her as if she were an old woman. They led her to a picnic table, and she sat down on the rough bench. Mama brought her a bowl of thick bean soup with minced meat and set another one in front of Lucius. Breakfast?
The others came forward, bringing their own cups, bowls, and utensils for the morning meal. As Bastion members crowded the picnic table benches to listen to Lucius’s story, others stood holding cups in their hands, slurping soup or coffee in the morning chill. A basket held small wild apples.
‘The Bastion has many other settlements around the country, people hiding from the cities to make a life for themselves, back to nature. At first it sounded idealistic and utopian, but others went into hiding for different reasons. When Simon joined us, he told us about the lampir – vampires. They’ve preyed on humans in Europe for centuries, and now the things are spreading across America. He was a fiery crusader, and he convinced a lot of us.’ Lucius swallowed hard. ‘And some of us didn’t need convincing. We thought we were safe out here in the woods.’
His gaze took on a troubling intensity. The fire behind his dark brown eyes reminded her of the obsession she had seen on Simon Helsing’s face. His voice grew strange and raspy.
‘I already knew Simon’s warning was true, had known it for years. I remember the night it happened, when that thing attacked our settlement. I was barely twenty. I remember when he – it – tore into one of the tents on the outskirts of camp. The woman inside, a lovely lady who gathered honey and shared it with all of us – she screamed. It was long after midnight, and we lit our lanterns, grabbed our hunting rifles, shotguns, handguns, knives, baseball bats, what have you, and rushed to defend her. Her screams fell silent before we could even get to her tent. I’ll never forget that wet gurgling sound.’
Lucius shook his head. ‘I had my rifle slung over my shoulder, and several other men and women closed in. The vampire tore his way out of the honey woman’s tent, using clawed hands to shred the fabric. He lunged out, howling.’
Lucius turned pale and closed his eyes. Lexi watched him shudder as he relived the memory. ‘I will never forget it.’ He kept his eyes closed, crystallizing details as he spoke. ‘Its eyes were a demon’s – sharp, slitted, and red. I saw fangs, blood covering his lips, running down his chin. I unslung my rifle, slammed back the bolt. Two other people got off shots, and I saw a bullet strike the vampire. It spun, staggered, but recovered itself and kept charging toward us.
‘I shot at it, but I missed.’ He heaved a long shaky breath. ‘I missed! But the Bastion stood together, and when the vampire saw us with our lanterns and our weapons, closing in on it, the thing fled into the forest like a shadow. The night was dark, and there was something … jagged about him.’
The other members of the Bastion ate hunched over, listening with rapt attention. Lexi finished her soup and just stared at Lucius, moved by the passion and sincerity in his words.
Though engrossed in the story, Lexi was thinking clearly now. ‘It sounds like a terrible ordeal, but that’s not proof. It’s just a tale. You could be making it all up.’
Lucius looked annoyed. His dusky complexion turned ruddier. ‘I could be. You’ll just have to believe me.’
‘I have proof,’ said a gruff voice.
A tall man with dark skin and intense eyes came up to the picnic table. He wore a high-collared hunting jacket, a cap with ear flaps, and a thick gray sweater. Lexi turned to him and he leaned closer, defiant, intimidating. ‘I fought them, and I have the scars to show for it.’ He tugged at the collar of his sweater, spread open the camouflage jacket. ‘Look!’
He tilted his head, baring his throat like a submissive animal. Lexi saw uneven, mangled scars on his neck, rows of them, where his throat had been torn open. But he had somehow survived. ‘Two vampires killed the rest of my family, and they almost got me, but I got away.’ His voice cracked, and he looked at Lexi as if he could barely hold in a scream.
‘This is Nolan,’ Lucius said. ‘He came from a different Bastion camp, but we welcomed him.’
‘Look at the scars!’ Nolan jabbed at his throat.
‘Very convincing.’ Lexi kept her voice quiet and did not point out that the scars could have come from another injury.