Vampire Romance: AMBER - The Grue Series (Vampire Romance, Paranormal, The Grue Series Book 1)

by Adams, Nancy

Horace glanced into the bag and smiled thinly, careful not to let his fangs show.

  “That’s very good, Dad, but just so happens, I’m a little hungry, and you’re not showing good manners. I’m a guest, and you’re supposed to feed me. How’s about your little woman, there, fixes me some dinner? Surely you can be that nice, can’t you?”

  “We’ll do no such thing!” Daddy shouted. “You’ve got your money, now get out!"

  Horace scowled; he was stalling now, waiting. Rudy would have called in his tip by then, but there was no sign of the Sheriff, yet. Horace needed to make his escape in front of cops, to convince them I’d been just an innocent victim.

  He pointed the gun at my head again, and Mom put a hand out to Daddy.

  “It’s alright, Charles,” she said. “There’s some spaghetti left over, and I’m sure Amber is hungry, too, aren’t you sweetheart?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “I haven’t eaten anything since last night.” Well, it wasn’t a lie!

  Mom got up and went into the kitchen, leaving the door open so she could be seen and heard, busying herself with warming the spaghetti and making garlic toast to go with it. It was the first normal food I’d smelled since my change, of course, and it smelled wonderful! I remembered Horace telling me I could eat normal food and enjoy it, and suddenly wondered if I’d even be able to bear how good it would taste to my newly enhanced taste buds.

  Mom brought in two plates, set one in front of me and the other before Horace. I didn’t know if vampires could eat or not so I was curious, and watched as he took a forkful and put it in his mouth. He did it so smoothly that I never saw his fangs, even though I was looking for them. I bent my head to my own plate and shoved a big mouthful in, acting hungry.

  Oh, my—

  It tasted every bit as good as I’d been expecting, and then some! I could taste every morsel of oregano, of garlic, of tomato—I was worried that I might have another orgasm, just from the intensity of the flavors, but then I remembered the taste of raw, living human muscle and skin, and began to tremble—and Oh! How his heart had tasted, his living, still beating—

  Whoa, Girl, stop that line of thought before you start to tremble, again! I thought, and forced myself to concentrate on my act—but it was a close one, and I don’t know what it would have looked like to my parents!

  Okay, okay, stick to the Plan, I thought—and as if that was a cue, I suddenly heard the sound of distant vehicles approaching on the gravel road that ran in front of the house. I didn’t have enough experience then to know how far away they were, but I guessed they came within a quarter-mile and stopped. I could hear voices, too, once the cars were silent, and made out enough words to know that there were at least a half-dozen deputies sneaking toward the house. They were coming right through our cornfields, staying low, though the stalks were only a foot high or so, and couldn’t really hide anybody.

  I glanced at Horace, and he flicked his eyes to mine, so I was sure he’d also heard them approaching. We couldn’t have rehearsed the parts that were to come next, of course, so we both tensed.

  Horace

  Damned if Amber wasn’t every bit as talented as she claimed to be! We went into our act as soon as her daddy opened the door, and she let the tears flow as she told him how big, bad Allen the Kidnapper had bullied and scared her into telling about Daddy’s safe. I kept an eye on him; he was a real man, not one of the wussy-types that call themselves men these past few decades. I knew that if he thought there was a chance to take me down or disarm me, he’d go for it, so I couldn’t let any such chance come to exist.

  Amber had told me there were guns in the house, but they were kept in a locked cabinet. I spotted it as soon as we walked in, and the first thing I noticed was an empty slot for a handgun. I thought about asking her father where it was, but decided to just watch for it. If he got off a shot and hit me, it would blow everything, so I couldn’t let that happen. I’d promised Amber I wouldn’t hurt any of her family, and I never go back on my word.

  Luckily, he didn’t risk it. I think the big three-fifty-seven revolver I was holding on Amber was a good deterrent. He was afraid that if he tried anything, I’d squeeze the trigger in reflex, and her death would be on his hands.

  He brought me the money in his safe—which I had no intention of actually stealing, of course—but there was no sign of the long arm of the law, yet, so I had to buy some time.

  “I’m a guest,” I said, “make me some dinner!” He bristled, but his wife was smarter than him. She got up and made me a plate of spaghetti, gave Amber one as well. Poor girl almost fainted, I think, when she realized how much better food tastes to one like us.

  Wasn’t long after that when the sheriff showed up, and things got busy. I glanced at Amber and knew she’d heard them, too, so I just played it by ear. There was one out in the field, watching us with spyglasses, and as he was alone that direction, I decided that would be the way I’d go. And sure enough, just when I was getting impatient to get the final act over with—

  Amber

  It took more than ten long, agonizing minutes for the officers to get to the house, and they took positions around the front and back. Their whispers were crystal clear to Horace and me, so we knew where each of them had stationed himself.

  Our living room was on the east—well, the right side of the house on the ground floor, as you looked at it from in front, and about midway along its depth. It had a window, a big one, and one deputy was just inside the field on that side, on his belly and watching us through binoculars. He was describing what he saw through radios to the others.

  “Okay, Sheriff,” he said (and I was surprised—I figured the sheriff would be home for the night, but apparently he’d been called in; that probably accounted for the delay). “The whole family is at the table except Mr. Fair, he’s standing beside his wife—the other man is seated, and he’s holding a handgun, looks like a service revolver, maybe a thirty-eight.”

  “Ten-four,” came the reply, “then let’s do this! Everyone, if the guy fires, return it, but for God’s sake, be careful! We don’t want anyone hurt by accident, got it? Okay, then, here we go...”

  I counted a dozen heartbeats before the Sheriff’s voice boomed at us through a loudspeaker.

  “In the house! This is Sheriff Bill Conklin! You are surrounded. Put down your weapon and come out with your hands in the air!"

  Horace leapt to his feet and yelled, “Oh, hell, no!” He ran first toward the front door, then back into the dining room, looked at my dad and said, “You tricked me!” then turned and jumped right through the big square window, “forgetting” the money.

  He landed on his feet and—deliberately—ran straight at the deputy with the binoculars, who fumbled for his gun and barely got it out, just as Horace ran past him. He was yelling for help, but turned and fired several shots at Horace as he ran. Horace tossed a couple wild shots back over his shoulder at the deputy, but they were high and didn’t endanger anyone at all.

  Several of the others ran after Horace, and we heard several more shots. Daddy had grabbed my sisters and pulled them down to the floor, and I’d done the same with Mom, but then I couldn’t help raising my head to try to see if Horace was okay. I was about to get to my feet when the sheriff and another deputy came crashing through the front door.

  The next several hours were a nightmare. I was questioned about Horace, and about what had happened to Floyd, and they kept going over and over the same things as if they thought I would change my answers. I didn’t, of course.

  “All I know is his name is Allen something, I never heard him say, and he said he killed Floyd but I was tied up in a cave somewhere, I don’t know where...” I stuck to my story exactly as rehearsed, and by about three in the morning they were finally convinced that I was a victim, just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Since I said he hadn’t hurt me or raped me, there was no need to take me to the hospital, but it was suggested that I see our family doctor the next day.

  H
orace, of course, had gotten away, crossing the road and vanishing into the woods. A deputy was stationed to guard us the rest of the night and the next day, in case he came back, and the rest finally left us around five in the morning.

  It was time for my real act to begin.

  Chapter Seven

  Amber

  Mom wouldn’t let me out of her sight the next morning, and I had to keep reminding myself to act tired, even fake a couple short naps, but the word that I was home and safe had spread, so there was a constant stream of phone calls and people corning by to visit. Vince was one of them, of course, and I let him hold me while I cried on his shoulder, but I pleaded exhaustion a little bit later and sent him on his way. He’d smelled very good—like as in “mouth-wateringly” good! I was gonna have to get used to that, if I wanted to pass for human and normal.

  (Interestingly, and happily, none of my family smelled that way to me. I’m sure that might have been different if I was hungry, but thank God I never had to find out.)

  Of course, my family truly was tired, and a little after noon we all went to our rooms to rest. I was in my bedroom lying down when I suddenly felt a need to go to the bathroom—an urgent one.

  Wait, let me say this: after I had eaten what was probably a good ten or fifteen pounds of poor, unfortunate Ronnie, my belly had been as distended as if I had been six months gone in pregnancy! Oddly, though, only two or three hours passed before it was as flat as ever—even a little flatter than it had been before my change, and the only bathroom effect was that, the next day, I peed about a dozen times. Each time, it was a clear, red-tinted stream, until I finally didn’t have to go anymore. I digested so completely that the only thing left behind was liquid!

  But I’d eaten a plateful of spaghetti the night before, then Mom made us a late breakfast of pancakes and bacon—and suddenly, all that stuff wanted out! I went quickly to the bathroom I shared with my sisters, dropped my pants and sat down on the toilet, and made a face as a steady stream of gooey yuck exited through my butt.

  I’m sure you’ve had diarrhea, right? Well, imagine if everything came out just as it went down your throat, chewed up, pretty much liquefied but not really digested, and all mixed together? I pooped out pasta, sauce, pancakes, syrup, bacon—

  Ewww! It was even grosser than having the runs. Everything came out the same way—I mean, even the coffee I’d drunk, and a couple of sodas. It all came out the back, mixed in with the rest, disgustingly—disgusting!

  And the smell was awful, it was like—well, take the smell of a slop bucket that’s been sitting for a couple of days, and add in a pukey smell, and then remember that my nose was now working about a hundred times better than it had been the last time I’d been around any such thing—

  Okay, let’s just say it was bad, shall we? After it was over, I got clean clothes and took a nice, hot shower, and felt better.

  I’d been back in my room about a half-hour, when Molly came and tapped softly on my door.

  Molly was fourteen, and reminded me a lot of myself at that age. I let her in, and she closed the door behind herself.

  “Amber,” she began, “I—I—I just want you to know I always knew you’d come back—I just, I just knew you were okay, somehow...” She broke down suddenly, then, and threw her arms around my neck, sobbing. “Oh, God, Amber, we, we all, we thought you were dead, they said there was blood all over the floor at the store, and, and that man, I was so scared, but you, you were so brave...”

  I felt like crap. I held her and let her cry it out, and told her I’d been scared too, that it was okay to be scared. It took a while for her to calm down, and somewhere in the middle of her crying, little Angie, who was only ten, peeked in with tears of her own.

  I stretched out one hand and waved her in, and there we sat, the Fair sisters, all hugging each other and bawling like babies—and I let them think that I was crying from my fears, like they were, but the truth was that, at that moment, I just didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to be a monster, one that would disgust and terrify my adorable little sisters—let alone one that might endanger them.

  They fell asleep, and I held them close to me. Of course, it was far too late to worry about what I was, what I had become. I was a grue, and for many reasons I had to say goodbye to my old life, move away from these sisters I loved so much, and the very best reason of all was for their own safety! I never wanted to be close to anyone I cared about if the hunger-madness hit me, not if it was anything like what Horace described!

  Mom called us all down to dinner around six, so I woke the girls and steeled myself for another bout of bathroom distress to come later—but Mom’s beef stew is so good I decided to just enjoy it and deal with the grossies when I had to. And to be honest, I really needed the love and comfort, right then, which came from a simple family sit-down dinner. Mom was always great at making our dinners feel special that way.

  Dad had spent the day repairing the big east window in the dining room, and we all took turns admiring his workmanship. Dad’s the kind who never does anything halfway; that window was now covered on the outside by a decorative—but very solid—wrought-iron grate. No one would be coming through it, that was for sure, and never mind that it was how Horace got out, rather than in.

  “And,” Dad said, “That’s not just glass, it’s inch-thick Plexiglas! Stop most bullets, that stuff will! That son of a bitch may get it in his head to come back here; I don’t want him takin’ any pot shots at my girls!"

  The love in his eyes made it clear that he included Mom as one of “his girls,” and we all hugged him. I might have hugged him a bit tighter than Mom or my sisters—but then, I knew I wouldn’t have many more chances—so I got one while I could.

  We sat down to eat, and I made a point of embedding the scene into my memory (which was easy, since one of the things Horace had failed to tell me was that my memory had become photographic). Dad sat, naturally, at the head of the table, and Mom at its foot; Molly and Angie would normally have sat together on Dad’s right, with me on his left, but this night both girls wanted to sit by me. I had to eat dinner squished in between them, to stop the fight that broke out. It was sweet, though, and made me fight back the tears again.

  We chatted as we ate, and Mom asked, very carefully, if I was going to try to go back to work right away. “I’m sure Mr. Barton will understand, Amber, if you want to take a few more days, after—after your ordeal, and all.”

  I just about withered inside! Though I’d known I would have to tell them I was planning to leave, I’d been hoping to put it off a couple more days; but with that question on the table, I couldn’t, not without hurting them even worse, later. I took a big, deep breath, and cleared my throat.

  “I’ve—I’ve been doing some thinking, today, Mom,” I said. “I, um, I—I’m not gonna go back to work at the Kewpee.”

  Mom nodded, as if she’d expected me to say just that. “Well, that’s understandable, Sweetie, and I’m sure there are many other jobs for a girl with your— “

  “No—Mom, Dad, listen...” I swallowed hard. This was where all those hours in drama club were gonna have to pay off! “I—I got so scared, when, when that man had me—I just kept thinking, ‘I’m gonna die, I’m only eighteen and I’m gonna die!’ The more scared I got, the more I—I told myself that if I lived through it, I’d never take another day of my life for granted. I told myself that I’d go on and make my dreams come true, cause what if I had died, only I never did anything except wait tables, or be in some dumb high school plays? I want to do something, I want to make something out of my life, and—and I feel like I’m living on borrowed time, now, like I got a second chance at my dreams...”

  I trailed off, and Mom was quick to fill in the silence.

  “Well, Amber, it’s easy to see how you’d feel that way, and of course, you should pursue your dreams—but you can’t ignore reality, either, Sweetheart—“

  “I’m not, Mom,” I said, interrupting her again. “And part
of reality is that we never know how much time we’ve got—so, so I’ve made a decision.” I drew in another deep breath, while both of my parents and both my sisters stared at me. “I, uh, I’ve always wanted to go to Hollywood, and see if I’ve got what it takes to make it in movies, you know? Well, if that guy had killed me, I’d have died without ever giving it a try, and that—that makes me want to cry—so I’ve decided to take my college money and go on and do it.”

  Of course, both Mom and Dad were against the idea, while Molly and Angie wobbled between wanting me to stay, and cheering the idea that their big sis might get to be a movie star, someday. I looked down at the table, and let them all have their say, then answered without looking up.

  “I know you don’t like this,” I said softly, “but please, please understand that this is something I just have to do. And I won’t be stupid, I promise you—I’ll still go to college, I’ll just work my way through. I’m sure I can get into a decent school out there, there’s lots of ‘em in LA—”

  I’ll say this for my parents: once they accepted that I was determined to do what I wanted to do, they chose to support me rather than get angry at me, and I loved them all the more for it. And the girls were excited for me, telling me over and over how sure they were that I’d be a star.

  And then everything turned into a free-for-all, when I announced that I was thinking of leaving that weekend, on Sunday. Since it was Thursday evening, that meant I’d only be with them for a couple more days, and it took almost an hour to get everyone calmed back down—and then, at last, they all accepted that I was really grown up, really an adult, and really going out to California on my own.

  By the time dinner and all the fuss were finally over, and we’d relaxed in front of the TV for a while, it was nearly nine o’clock, and though we’d all (except Dad—oh, and me) taken naps, everyone else was admitting to being tired. We’d taken the phone off the hook hours earlier, and Mom decided to leave it that way so we could all go to bed early and try to catch up on the sleep we’d lost the night before.