Saul released Lester’s hand moments shy before every bone within it would have shattered. The drunk let out a moan that was half-pain, half-relief. The latter did not last long, however, as Saul had wrapped a hand around Lester’s neck and lifted him straight into the air a moment later.
“Please don’t ever come back to my house,” Saul said, mock-polite. To make the order stick, he let some of his true power shine through his eyes: Fire and ash and blood, all focused on Lester’s shivering form. Lester gasped; the glint of red in Saul’s eyes was more frightening than everything else that’d happened to him. He would not forget it, either, even if he would question if it had ever happened in a few days’ time.
Lester gave a confused look and shook his head, as if to clear the cobwebs. It was the most sober he had appeared since walking through Saul’s front door uninvited.
Hank spoke up from behind them, still standing by the opened front door. His voice was light and shaken, like that of a scared little boy. “Lester,” he said. “We um, we have to…”
Before he could finish, Saul jerked Lester towards him, so close now that their noses were touching. The red in his eyes was gone, but Saul could see that he had instilled just enough terror in the man to have him never step foot on this property again.
“This is your only warning,” Saul growled. “If you ever come here again, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”
Too scared and helplessly angry to respond, Lester only nodded. That was good enough for Saul. He pitched the man hard towards the door with a flick of his wrist. Lester collided with Hank and both of them went falling through the opened doorway. When they thudded on the porch in a heap, Hank was the first to scramble to his feet. He cast Saul a weary glance and then started to shakily step back down the porch steps.
Both men ambled down onto Saul’s front yard and into the night. If the speed in their step was any indication, the experience had sobered them up a bit. Lester cast one final glance over his shoulder before the night swallowed him up.
Saul stood in his doorway, waiting. He knew the men would not return, but the brazen nature of their arrival was alarming. In all the years the Benton family had lived on this property and despite all the rumors, no one had ever come right up to the cabin’s front door. Not even the dumbest of rambunctious teens trying to impress their friends had dared to be so bold.
When he could no longer smell the beer and sweat coming from the pair, Saul closed his door. Feeling slightly ridiculous in doing so, he locked his door for the first time since his family had claimed the cabin nearly one hundred years ago.
He returned to his book but couldn’t get back into it. He poured himself another glass of wine, unable to shake the feeling that something was amiss in Red Creek. Maybe The Guard had something to do with it, or maybe the people were simply becoming more and more obnoxious. Either way, it was something different.
When you lived the life of a dormant vampire, different was never good.
3
Nikki Galimore sat in front of a computer monitor in the Red Creek Public Library, drumming her fingers on the edge of the keyboard. She was staring at the log-in page for the library’s digital microfilm archives. With a bit of a nervous twitch in her hands, she typed in the log-in information the woman at the front desk had given her.
She thought about where to start as archives opened up. Being that Red Creek was such a hole in the ground, finding what she needed was easier than she’d expected. All she had to type in was a single word—Benton—and she was provided with the only written and recorded information on the Benton family.
Sure, she knew about the rumors, especially about the death of a man she assumed had been Saul’s father. Given her own experience with the town gossip-mill, she had always assumed that at least half of what people said about the Bentons was a hundred percent false. Still, there must be something weird about that family. Even if it wasn’t as dark and morbid as the Satanic rituals she had heard about, there was surely some reason that they had lived out there in that cabin, tucked away from everything and everyone, for so long.
Her search for Benton resulted in only three articles. The first was the one she had been expecting to see. The headline alone told it all: GRISLY MURDER OF ISAAC BENTON IN RED CREEK WOODS HAS POLICE BAFFLED. She decided she’d save that one for last since she had been expecting it.
She went to the other two articles and opened each one. The first headline read: UNRULY TEENS CAUGHT TRESPASSING. The article was brief, telling the story of two teenage boys that were caught partying at the top of the driveway that led down to the Benton’s cabin in 1987. Nikki knew that some teens still did that sort of thing. When she had been in high school, there were a few Goth-oriented groups that had tried to get up the nerve to go all the way to the cabin to summon the evil spirit of Isaac Benton.
The third article surprised her a bit. The headline read: LOCAL GIRL MAIMS WOULD-BE RAPIST. She read the article, fully expecting Saul Benton to be the rapist in question. However, the article went on to tell the story of a young woman, aged 17, named Jillian Benton. She had been walking home from town one night and had been picked up by a rowdy local who had tried to rape her. He got a broken arm and a long bloody scar down the entire right side of his face for his troubles.
Nikki had never heard of a Jill Benton. Could this perhaps be Saul’s sister? . If so, why did everybody talked as if Saul was the last of the family?
Frustrated at the appearance of yet more questions, Nikki sighed and went back to the first article. She opened it, and started reading. This one was longer, but not more useful. . Two paragraphs in and she saw just how much of the story had been stretched and manipulated by small-town gossip. According to local lore, Isaac Benton had been killed as part of a Satanic ritual. At the same time, the events surrounding the murder were labeled as “unknown.” His body had been discovered by a hunter in the woods surrounding Red Creek, mangled almost beyond recognition. Saul and Jill Benton —ah, there she was again and yes, according to this article, she was indeed Saul’s sister — had both been questioned and their stories checked out. Nothing about said stories was mentioned..
Oddly enough, that was all there was to it. Nikki couldn’t find any other articles that spoke of an investigation or any breaks in the case. It was as if the town was almost glad that Isaac Benton had died. Which, if local gossip was to be believed, was in fact the case.
She went back to the article about Isaac Benton’s murder and looked at the one picture of the murder scene. It was really nothing more than a black and white snapshot of the woods where Isaac had been killed. A few policemen milled around and there was crime scene tape strung up along the trees.
Then Nikki saw the man standing near the back of the picture, leaning against a tree. His face was mostly turned away from the picture but she was certain she recognized it. A chill made her shudder and she leaned away from the monitor, letting her eyes focus. Maybe she was seeing things, maybe she—
But no…she was seeing it. Saul Benton was standing against the tree, standing on the edge of the scene where his father had been murdered. The picture had been taken a little over twenty years ago, yet he looked exactly the same as he had yesterday when she had seen him speeding away from town.
“Holy shit,” Nikki breathed under her breath.
If she had ever needed any proof aside from the slanderous Red Creek rumors that there was something off about Saul Benton, this was it. Apparently, the man had not aged a single day in twenty years. Nikki stared hard at the photo. His likeness was so spot on, the picture could have been taken yesterday. She then thought of that anger she had seen on his face; even through the windows and the space between them, she had seen it perfectly. And had she really seen that exact same, nearly-evil hatred on the face of the monster in Jason’s grainy trap-cam footage?
No, she thought. Don’t jump to conclusions…you’re getting to be worse than Jason. That thing on the footage was barely human-looking. You’re
trying to make connections that belong in a horror movie…and not a good movie at that.
Nikki closed the window and stepped away from the monitor. She then left the library, suddenly eager to put as much space between herself and anything to do with the Benton family as she could. Outside, the sun reigned high in the sky; she shivered, loving the feel of sunshine on her skin. It washed away that ungodly cold that had come over her in the library. Nikki walked slowly to her car, trying her best to digest the oddities she had recently uncovered about Red Creek’s resident recluse. She was slightly alarmed to find that she wasn’t scared. In fact, she was curious.
Nikki spent most of her ride back to the Red Creek B&B trying to convince herself that making an unannounced trip to the Benton Cabin would be a bad idea.
4
Kara Humphrey drove her beat-up old Ford Escape down Greenway Road, headed for a place she had no interest in going. She was driving her personal vehicle rather than the patrol car so she wouldn’t stir up any sort of suspicions and give the gossip mill more kindling for their stupid little fires. She’d just eaten her lunch—a turkey and cheese sandwich—and she could feel it sloshing around in her stomach. She felt uneasy, anxious, and if she was honest with herself, a little excited.
Less than a mile up the road was the driveway that wound slightly back into the woods, ending at the place she had always known simply as the Benton Cabin. She knew that her duties as Deputy -especially when filling in for the ailing Sheriff- should have superseded any lingering beliefs regarding the town’s rumors about the Benton family, but she found it hard to let go of all she had heard.
Besides…it was her job. She had to go to the Benton Cabin to question Saul Benton.
Or, at least that’s what Lester Dobbs had said.
Kara had been at work for no more than fifteen minutes that morning before Lester Dobbs stumbled into the station. The man had a bruise on his forearm, and was holding his neck as if he feared his head might fall off of it – nothing too unusual, given the man’s prepotency to get into trouble. The fear that clouded his face – that had been rather new.
“I need to report a violent act,” Lester had said. He’d recited the words just as he had heard them on one of those lame crime shows on television.
Kara had humored him and listened to his story. It had started with being pushed through the window at Randy’s Roost and ended with him leaving Saul Benton’s cabin, fearing for his life. She’d not believed any of it at first but when she visited Randy’s Roost and saw the smashed window, alarms began to whir in her head., She had spoken with Randy himself, as well as visited Hank Dooling at Lester’s request; after all was said and done, she had known that paying Saul Benton a visit was no longer optional.
Kara still didn’t buy Lester’s story in its entirety, but there was certainly something going on. The property damage enough was reason to talk to Benton, even if Randy was not planning to press charges.
Kara turned her Escape into Benton’s driveway, mentally cursing Lester Dobbs for putting her into this situation. The man had just graduated from a nuisance to official pain in the police’s ass.
The cabin came into sight before her. Kara blinked; it was an anti-climactic sort of moment. The place looked rustic and quaint, resembling in no way a haunted house or Satanic headquarters. It looked like the kind of cabin where you would sit on the porch on hot afternoons, drinking beer and strumming an acoustic guitar.
Kara parked her Escape at the end of the driveway next to Saul’s car and stepped out. She looked back towards the road and realized that she could just barely catch glimpses of it through the trees. Still, while she was less than three miles away from the Red Creek city line, she felt like she was hundreds of miles from civilization.
As she walked toward the house—no pathway, just the perfectly manicured front lawn—she felt her lunch trying to roll over in her stomach. For a dizzying moment, she thought she might actually throw up.
Stop being stupid, she told herself. Forget about the rumors and the gossip. Just go up on that porch, knock on the door, and do your job.
Kara tried to imagine what Sheriff Morel would say if he knew that she was reacting like this. He’d have a laugh or two and then go up there and show Saul Benton who was the boss. Well, maybe not; although Kara had only seen Saul Benton a handful of times, she knew for a fact that the man was built like the side of a mountain.
With all of that going through Kara’s head, she had reached the porch steps without even knowing it. Kara waited for her stomach to calm itself, did her best to focus, and knocked on the door.
5
Saul was stirred awake by a knock at his front door. He sat up in bed quickly, instantly on alert. No one had ever knocked on his front door other than his family when they had still lived here together. But his dad was dead and Jill was somewhere else in the United States. Unless…maybe it was Jill, somehow. Maybe she’d come back.
No, that didn’t make sense either. It was daytime outside. That meant this visitor was most likely human, and therefore trouble. Two unexpected visits to the house in less than twenty-four hours, Saul thought. This can’t be good. The Guard will surely know about this and I’ll end up having to answer a bunch of stupid questions.
All of this went through his head as he dressed and headed for the door. He opened it quickly, a flick of a motion; the woman on the other side looked alarmed. He studied her slight built, the nervous way in which she attempted to smile at him, and frowned. The woman was dressed in the local police’s uniform. The name on her breastplate read Deputy Humphrey. Deputy, huh. Not good.
“Hello?” Saul said.
“Hi, Mr. Benton,” said Deputy Humphrey. “I am Deputy Kara Humphrey. I’m sorry to bother you.”
Saul shrugged. “What can I do for you?”
Kara looked at her feet, as if she didn’t want to explain why she was there. When she looked back at him, she had to crane her neck upwards. “I got a visit from Lester Dobbs this morning. He says you invited him and Hank Dooling over here for a beer last night and then attacked them.”
Saul let out a weary laugh. “That’s what he said? Yeah…that’s not how it went at all.”
“He also says that you pushed him through the window at Randy’s Roost. Randy backs this story up; there are at least four other men that saw it as well.”
“Yes, that might have happened,” Saul answered. “But I did not invite him over here.”
“Lester claims that you invited him and Hank over for a beer as an apology of sorts. I honestly don’t believe him, but he had bruises on him. He’d been in some kind of altercation. I hope you understand I have to ask you some questions or I wouldn’t be doing my job.”
Saul nodded. “Come on in, I guess,” he said.
Kara stepped into the cabin and Saul could tell right away that she was uneasy. She didn’t take a seat when he offered her one; instead, she stood close by the door. Saul could tell that she was scared but was doing her best to hide it. He smelled the fear on her, but he smelled something else as well: excitement. And it was more than just excitement—it was a woman’s excitement. It was one of Saul’s favorite scents and not just the lust-fueled excitement that he had longed for in his youth. There was really no better smell, other than that of freshly spilled blood.
“Would you mind telling me your version of the story?” Kara asked.
Saul did. He told the whole truth with a few slight exceptions. He did not tell her that he had been sitting on the couch, reading. He didn’t tell her that he had known they were coming as soon as they had stepped onto his driveway. But other than that, he told her everything. Of course, he had also left out the part where he had felt his eyes go red. He wondered if Lester had mentioned that during his visit to Kara earlier in the morning.
He saw her looking around, trying to find any evidence of the fight. He was relieved when he saw that she looked almost embarrassed to be here. She didn’t believe Lester’s story at all but, as she ha
d said, she was doing her job. He didn’t blame her. Hell, he wasn’t even angry that this was the second human being that had come through his doorway in the past day.
“You’re welcome to take a look around,” Saul offered.
He rather hoped she would. The scent coming off of her had him getting rather excited, too. However, his better judgment told him that could lead to danger. He had his urges under control and knew that he would not kill a human no matter how strong the urge got—but there was no sense in testing things.
His desire for blood he was able to control. But the need for sex…that was still a struggle.
Kara Humphrey let out a sigh and shook her head. “I appreciate it, but I think I’m good here. Lester is…well…he doesn’t have the best reputation.”
“Yes, so I hear. I feel for him, as I can say the same.”
A slight blush rose to the Deputy’s cheeks. “I guess so. Although I wouldn’t say yours is a bad reputation.”
“No? Tell me, what are the latest rumors?”
Kara blushed again and the excited smell seemed to radiate from her now. Saul took a single step towards her and breathed it in. Somewhere in the furthest reaches of his primal mind, he wanted to go for her throat. There was another urge beyond that, one that was fueled by a male need that had not been quenched for a very long time. Thank God she was wearing a police uniform that hid most of her natural curves.
“I haven’t heard any new ones.”
“Really? Nothing at all?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, the old dumb ones still float around. People think your family was into Satanism. Some think you’re witches or vampires or demons or some damned thing.”
“Disappointing,” Saul said. “You’d think they’d come up with something much more unique in this day and age.”
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