“The man blamed our neighbor and my grandmother for the loss of his son, and I was the closest he could find to exact his meager measure of revenge before choosing to opt out. Spent five months in rehab trying to walk again, my career in basketball over, my schooling put on hold as I tried to come to terms with how tragically my life had changed,” Renny told him softly, then smirked. “That’s when Benji showed back up. He had been monitoring my progress, keeping tabs from a distance, and had secretly paid off my mounting medical bills, something that I wasn’t made aware of until long after I said yes and agreed to come work for him.”
“They were late, you see. They’d heard what was going on, had dispatched one of our teams, but they were still on the road when the exorcism began and only arrived in enough time to go to the funeral. I think he felt guilty at first, but over time he saw something in me that made him take interest. I’m grateful that he did, because he gave me a purpose, a reason to go on. I know you’re dealing with a lot right now, but you’re the not first to go through this, you won’t be the last, and we do have people to talk to if you need a friendlier ear than mine.”
He didn’t see how that was possible. Renny was the only one that seemed to be playing it straight, that seemed to care about what he was going through, and even though he accepted that he could open up; he wasn’t ready. “You talk about these things like they’re real, but they can’t be. This isn’t a John Carpenter movie.”
“Did you get a little wood?” Renny smirked.
“Mahogany,” he answered swiftly, which got the other man laughing again.
“Dare yer are. Gonna stay oyt ‘ere al’ noight?” a new voice asked hurriedly. He looked towards the front of the Humvee and saw a thin kid with blue eyes, a round face, freckles and short red hair. He looked to be still in high school or recently graduated, the acne on his face rampant and unchecked. He was wearing a Suicide Squad shirt and a pair of tattered blue jeans, a smart watch on his left wrist and a hat with the name Misfits emblazoned on it in large white letters.
Renny smiled and took another puff of his cigarette. “We were working on it. Wanted to get some fresh air.”
The new guy waved his thin hand in the air, “gran’ way ter go about it, yeah?”
“Did you need something Speedy? You’ll have to excuse my Irish friend here, he talks a little fast when he’s excited,” Renny told him, motioning to the other man. “Does it have to do with that phone you’re clenching hard enough to snap in two?”
“Ah, sorry, yeah. Yer got a fone call,” Speedy said, looking straight at him.
“Excuse me?” he asked, hand reaching tentatively for the iPhone being held out to him.
Renny chuckled, “his accent is a bit heavy, takes some getting used to. He says you got a phone call.”
“How the hell did I get a phone call here? My phone is on my dresser back at the apartment,” he told them, confused. Had someone retrieved it? How could they have done that without his knowing about it? “Did Benji bring it?”
“Benji? Naw, ‘e’s not back yet. Oi cloned yisser fone. Afraid Oi did dat about a week ago. Needed ter keep track av any time yisser wife wud try ter git ahauld av yer,” Speedy told him, the words rolling off his tongue faster than his mind could track.
Did he just say he cloned my phone a week ago? “My wife’s been dead for the past week. How the hell would she have called me? Plus, the police still have her phone in evidence, they haven’t released her effects to me just yet.”
The young face flashed his way, then back at Renny. “’e’s ‘avin’ a laugh, yeah? Don’t yer man nu waaat al’ dis aboyt?”
“Knowing and believing, two different things, right?” Renny shot back. “You tracking her phone calls? Get a fix on her location? That’ll make Naomi happy, she’s itching for a rematch.”
Speedy’s face made him chuckle, it was the do you think I’m stupid look he’d gotten more than once from his wife over the years. There was no true way to answer a look like that; either you were treating them like they were stupid, or they were just plain stupid. Lose lose.
He looked at the phone in his hand, it could have been his. It had the same wallpaper on the lock screen; a photo of he and his wife taken at Six Flags the previous summer. Pressing his thumb on the home button, he watched as the Touch ID unlocked his phone, the apps and settings exactly how he’d left them. There were five missed calls and two text messages. It was three in the morning, who would be calling him this late?
As if to answer, his phone went off and Pink began singing Just Like Fire, one of Amanda’s favorite songs and her ringtone, her picture showing up on the screen, her smile beaming as her loving eyes stared into his own.
Not happening!
His dead wife was calling him, did he really want to pick up?
Was that even a question?
“You going to answer?” Renny asked, an eyebrow raised.
He didn’t know what to say. His mouth worked, his throat moved, but nothing came out.
“Okay, here’s what you need to know,” Renny said, stepping forward and giving Speedy a knowing glance.
“It went to voicemail,” he muttered, not hearing. The moment of truth had arrived. Either he believed these people, that his wife had somehow become a specter that had risen from the grave, or there was something completely nefarious going on here and his wife was desperately trying to get ahold of him to explain.
Which did he believe?
She tried to rape and kill you before they even showed up. You know that. You can deny it all you want but you know that.
“Don’t worry, she’ll call back,” Renny told him with confidence. “When you answer, you need to be careful what you tell her. Try not to let her know where you are—.”
“I don’t even know where I’m at,” he interrupted, confused. Amanda was calling him? Did that mean she’d broken into the evidence locker at the police station and retrieved her phone? If she had gotten a new one, it’d be from a different number, right? No, they’d probably let her transfer it.
I’m so confused.
“Listen, no matter what she says, no matter what she tells you, this is not your wife, not anymore. She may have her memories, she may know your deepest and darkest, but the woman you loved, the soulmate your heart is crying out for, is gone. What’s left is a monster that will not hesitate to rip your heart from your chest, both physically and psychologically. You cannot let her in. Do not give her anything to work with. She will do whatever it takes to find out where you are, so that she can finish what she started on your bed, and if there is one power that’s absolute with these things, it’s their power of persuasion,” Renny said, reaching out and touching his shoulder. “Derek. Your wife is dead. This is not your wife. Do you understand me?”
He nodded, not sure that he did but unable to do anything else at the moment. His heart was aching, yearning to hear her voice, begging to feel her touch. She wouldn’t need to do much to persuade him, he belonged to her, heart and soul. How could he deny her anything?
“’E’s so fucked,” Speedy said in a tone of resignation, shaking his head for emphasis.
“Shut up and go back inside. Be ready to track this bitch next time she calls,” Renny commanded the younger man.
“Please. Ah’ve got software dat can chucker dat for me. Cleck an’ go bruther,” Speedy returned with a large smirk taking up half of his right cheek.
“Go.”
“Whatever,” Speedy snarked, then turned and walked away.
He was starting to hyperventilate, his head fogging over and making him nauseas. This was not happening. It couldn’t be.
There was no such thing as vampires.
Werewolves were the work of fiction.
The dead did not rise from the grave.
And I did not get a hard on while my dead wife straddled and tried to kill me.
Right?
His phone rang again.
This time he hit accept.
Chapte
r 3
I
“Derek? You there? Are you okay, baby?” his wife’s voice asked. Even though he had answered the phone knowing what to expect, he still couldn’t make himself believe it. Her concern unmistakable, her tone of voice exactly as he remembered it, even the cadence was perfect. It was hard to argue against her being back from the dead with evidence like this. Who else could pull this off and why would they even bother to begin with?
Someone’s fucking with you, boyo?
Would you shut up?
“How is this possible?” he responded softly, ignoring the warning glance from Renny. What did the man expect? He was talking to his dead wife on a cell phone, and it was in the real world, not some weird time rift that only let him talk to her at some point in the past. Somewhere, probably their own apartment, she was standing there with the phone pressed to her ear, waiting for him to continue.
Back to what matters.
“I had to identify your body in the morgue. I closed the lid on your casket. I watched as they began dumping the dug-up earth on top of you,” he told her.
He could hear her tears through the phone. “I know baby, but it wasn’t me, I swear. I went shopping at the mall for your birthday present and after I put the bags in the backseat, I got hit on the back of the head. I must have blacked out.”
“Your body was found next to your car in the parking lot,” he muttered. “Doesn’t seem like you got very far.”
Why am I talking to her like this? This isn’t me, this isn’t us!
She ignored him as she continued on, “I woke up a few times after that. I was in a laboratory of some kind. I saw other people there hooked up to machines, drugs being pumped into their veins to keep them knocked out. There were bright lights, a lot of medical equipment, and men in white masks. I was drugged, I don’t remember much, I don’t even know how I got away, but I did somehow. I came home to you thinking you’d welcome me with open arms, that I’d finally be safe. Then these people show up and starting shooting at me. They’re trying to hurt me, Derek. Why aren’t you here to protect me? I came home after they’d left, and you’re gone! Why would you leave? Do you not love me anymore?”
She really did know exactly what to say, because he felt guilty as hell for not being there when she came back. How ungrateful was he? She came back from the dead and everything and he wasn’t even there when she got home. His whole being wanted to tell these guys to fuck off, call an uber and go to her. To protect her from the people that had hurt her, that had created this masquerade for whatever nefarious reasons they deemed necessary.
Sounds a bit like an X-Files episode though, doesn’t it? Scully being abducted by “aliens”, a room full of pregnant women with devices connected to their belly buttons? She’s playing you!
Who are you? Why are you talking to me like this? That’s Amanda!
No, it’s not.
Even as he internally struggled to come to grips with the situation he was in, he realized that there was also something in her voice that was throwing him off, some aspect that was tingling at the back of his mind demanding to be noticed. She almost sounded too desperate for him to be there, like she was being excessively dramatic. Twelve years was a long time to be with someone, and he thought he knew her well enough to tell when she was lying, but his mind and heart were at war at which this was.
“Derek?”
“I’m here,” he commented, just to say something, his mind lost in thought. “So, they kidnapped you and faked your death, kept you in a laboratory, and you got free, but you have no recollection of how or how you got home afterwards? If that were true, then what or who did I just bury?”
“I don’t see why any of that is important. I’m alive, I’m home, isn’t that enough for you? Why are you asking me these questions instead of getting in a car? Yes, that’s what happened, I don’t know what else to tell you, it’s all I know. Now they’re after me, they followed me home and tried to kill me. You were there, you saw it for yourself. I need you baby. You have to protect me,” she pleaded, doing her damnedest to convince him that what she was saying was true.
His mind just couldn’t accept it, even if it was exactly the same things he’d been telling himself since all this began; when said out loud it just didn’t feel right.
And calling her a vampire does?
“And so, if that were true, how did you come to be wearing that dress I buried you in? Why did you attack me, throw me down and try to hurt me? You were trying to kill me!” he threw at her, his mind speaking before his heart. The sorrow that he’d been feeling all week was swelling with every word she spoke; he wanted to hold her again, no matter what it cost him in the end.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t attack you!” she protested, a bit of anger leaking into her voice. “I was so happy to see you, to be in your arms again, that I overreacted. I’m sorry I was so forceful. I thought I was going to die, that I would never see you again. I thought I’d lost you forever. Can you blame me for getting carried away? Do you even love me anymore? Seriously, were you happy to see me in that coffin? Were you secretly yearning to be free of me? Because if that’s how it is, you best tell me now. I didn’t bust my ass to come home just to be treated like a discarded diaper.”
“How—did you get into that dress? It was covered in dirt, like you’d crawled out of the grave in it. I’m sorry Honey, but I think you’re full of shit. You can’t reinvent reality to suit your purposes, I saw what I saw,” he returned.
What the fuck am I doing?
I spent all week wishing she’d come back to me, that God would find a way to return her to life, to let me put my arms around her once more, and now that the miracle has happened, I’m fighting it? How ungrateful am I capable of being? How am I not already on my way home?
During their relationship, the only lies she’d ever told were white, innocent you look good in those jeans type things. Never about anything important; not as serious as this, and even though he wanted to, he couldn’t believe a word she’d said since he’d picked up the phone.
“Why are you doing this?” she cried, and he could imagine the tears coursing down her cheeks, causing his agony to increase. “I thought you’d be happy to see me. You’re the love of my life, my Honey Bear. I don’t want to live without you. Please, baby, please, don’t do this to me, to us. Come home.”
“Why won’t you answer the question? Amanda, if this is truly you, then tell me the truth. You’ve never lied to me before, why start now? We have a marriage built on trust, of openness and transparency. We don’t lie to one another, ever,” he countered, reminding her of the pact they’d sworn long ago.
This was breaking his heart. If he was wrong about this, if what she was saying was true and she had broken free of her captors to reach him, if he had to bury her again, it would break him. He would not survive putting her in the ground twice; once had nearly killed him.
There was a soft chuckle on the other end. It was slightly higher pitch than he’d ever heard her utter, and the sound of it made his breath catch, as if a snake had just slithered up the driveway and was heading straight for him. “Guess I should have gone with being buried alive, huh? Figured the nerd in you would be easily persuaded by the abduction story. I know for a fact that you were already going down that path, so I went with it. The truth is out there and all that. Forgot the other part, trust no one. My bad.”
“Who are you?” he replied, a hitch in his voice. The way she had just spoken to him, the sarcastic words drenched in something icky, like acid about to fall and burn your hand pained him in ways he never thought possible. He hadn’t believed these people when they said she wasn’t his wife, not anymore, but it was one thing to be told something, another to have it confirmed by the monster that had replaced her.
It is your wife. She knew exactly what to say because she knows you buddy. She’s just not the same wife you slept next to for half your life.
“Come home, I’ll show you. I’m waiting for y
ou baby. Don’t make me wait too long though. I’m laying here in that white negligee you like so much, that vanilla sky perfume upon the air. I even put my hair up in pigtails for you, just the way you like. You know, when you take me from behind and want to hold onto something? I’m wet, I’m horny and badly need your cock in me. I crawled my way through six feet of dirt with that on my mind, of what it be like to fuck you again, to taste you. It’s been the best sex of my life, good enough to bring me back from the dead, and that’s saying something. I could go fuck anyone I want right now, but I want you. Come to me sweetie. I promise I won’t bite, your cock anyways,” she snickered, a slight hiss at the end; a shiver running up his spine. “After all, I need that bit still working, don’t I?”
Whatever this thing was, it may sound like his wife, but it wasn’t. No way she talked like that to him. She blushed anytime she said the word dick. Cock? No fucking way. His hands were trembling as he hit the end button, cutting off her laughter. His fingers were shaking so bad that he let go of the phone and took one step backwards.
Within seconds, her ringtone went off again; there was no way he was going to pick it up.
Renny bent down and retrieved the phone, then touched the screen and put it to his ear. “I’m sorry bitch, your husband is unavailable right now. I doubt you’re actually at home. You’re a coward who’s too frightened at the idea that we’re still hanging about there in case you were stupid enough to show your face there again. You know he’s not coming back there, that we won’t let him. But tell you what, you head there now, and I’ll personally be there to greet you. Care to try and fuck with someone that knows what you are and what you’re about? How ‘bout it, bitch?”
“Do you have to call her that?” he groaned, a hand to his forehead, his fingers trying to massage his temple; there was a headache on the horizon. He knew that Renny was just trying to goad her, but still. This was his wife the man was talking to, he should have some respect; at least for who she was in life if not in death.
Legacy Sanguis Page 4