by Atha, DL
“He was a vampire, Detective,” I said matter‐of‐factly, watching as he rolled his eyes at me. Starting to turn away from me now, I raised my voice in anger. “No, I’ve listened to your crazy shit, and now you’re going to listen to me! He was a vampire. He was sucking the life right out of me. And so I symbolically staked his clothes and buried them. I read about it in a self‐help book.”
He started laughing now. “That is rich, ma’am. Really rich. I’m going to write this crap down. It’ll make a great story to tell my friends someday. Once I’ve nailed you that is, and I will. You’re not going to take a step that I don’t take; you’re not going to as much as take a piss that I don’t know about. I’ll stay on you until I finally break you down.”
“You can’t handle my pace, Michael,” I snapped back, saying his first name like it was a curse. “I’m just curious, are they starting to worry about you down at the station? You know, quit talking when you walk in the room? Look at you funny? You should be careful spouting all this crazy talk around, Detective. Never know when they might start ‘testing you.’”
“Let me tell you about crazy,” he said angrily as he walked towards me. Fear was making him overly brave. “I know that you’re gone all day, and it isn’t to work because you’ve quit your job. Hell, you didn’t even give a notice. I doubt you’ll keep your medical license. Your mom has your daughter. Suddenly, you’re spending your evenings in bars, bars where men show up dead, I might add. Your house looks like crap, you’re killing the farm animals, and your mom won’t even say your name. You are ruining your life, and you call me crazy? I’m going to nail you, Annalice.” Leaning into me as he emphasized his last words, he poked me in the shoulder with a strong index finger as he spoke each syllable.
“The only thing you’re going to nail is your own coffin lid when they fire your ass at the station,” I answered back.
“We’ll see, Annie. We’ll just see about that,” he said. “I have a hunch that all I really need to do is to figure out where you go in this pasture when you leave your house.” He’d turned away from me and was studying the ground again with his flashlight.
Finally, the truth of what he was doing in my field hit me, and I remembered my prints in the dewy field a few nights back. He was tracking me to my hiding spot, and if he got really close to where the cellar was located and studied the ground hard enough, he might find it.
In that one moment of clarity, I hated Michael Rumsfield as much as a person can be hated. Everything bad that had happened since Asa died appeared to be of his doing. My daughter was gone and my mother thought I was a monster— her opinion aided and abetted by the detective. He knew too much about my involvement with Ms. McElhaney, and he was too suspicious about my comings and goings. And now he was here, in my pasture, searching for my last safe haven. Add that to the hunger that gnawed at my backbone and Asa’s encouragement in the background, and I lost all reason. Every ounce of my anger and angst landed squarely on his back in the shape of a hazy red target.
Without a conscious thought, I flung myself through the air at the detective’s hunched‐over frame. I don’t remember making the movement, but the expression of surprise on his face as he jerked towards me in response to my ear‐splitting howl registered for a fraction of a second before my fangs slid into his neck, and we crashed to the ground.
I hadn’t eaten in days, and since I’d killed Asa, I hadn’t taken my fill. I was weak, and Detective Rumsfield was a strong, skilled officer. He buckled underneath my momentum but still managed to flip his body over as we fell.
Landing with his back to the ground, he was silent except for the air being forced out of his lungs in a loud gush as the back of his head slammed into the dirt. One tiny vessel burst next to the iris on his right eye, but he remained conscious, although somewhat stunned.
With the rotation of his body, I’d lost my choke hold with my teeth, and I took the moments of his confusion to regain it as I went for his carotid artery again. Being bitten is a very unnatural feeling, and finally, he began to scream when his brain caught back up to what I was doing. He shot his left hand up, the palm catching alongside my cheek, and tried to force me away. With his right hand, he was landing right hook after right hook to the side of my head.
He couldn’t dislodge me, and with every second that I had my fangs in him, I was getting stronger, and he was getting weaker. I clamped down harder, cutting off more of the flow of blood to his brain; his consciousness began to wane, and his eyes lost focus. The maneuver is predatory, and most great cats in the world use this trick, but it also delayed the blood flowing into me. So when I was convinced that he was no longer conscious, I let up on the pressure in my jaws and allowed his carotid to flow more easily. I wasn’t thinking of anything except the kill. Not about Ellie or Mom, or about the man who was dying at the tip of my fangs.
I heard the bullet before I felt it and sat bolt upright on his chest as the hunk of lead slid through my spleen, dug through my diaphragm, traversed my lungs and then exploded out of my right shoulder. My arm flung outward before landing useless against my side. Knocked off balance, I fell backwards and rolled off of Rumsfield’s heaving form, landing on my belly, just as a second bullet pierced my chest, burrowing through me before burying itself in the ground.
“Officer down! Officer down! I need back‐up! I have just shot, I repeat shot, Dr. Annalice Creed behind her house. Send back‐up! 2332 Deerwood Drive. I need an ambulance,” Rumsfield screamed into his radio.
The squawk of his handheld radio hurt my ears as he kicked his legs free of mine. He crab‐crawled backwards a few feet and then with a loud gasp of air pushed himself to his feet. I hadn’t moved as of yet. The pain of the shots was excruciating. The nerve endings of my core were lit up like firecrackers, too much in shock to move when he stumbled over, his right hand gripping the left side of his neck, and kicked my leg with one booted shoe.
The radio screeched again with the metallic sounds of sirens and an affirmative scratchy response of the officer on the other end. Apparently, there was another squad car about ten miles away. The ambulance would take nearly twenty minutes longer. “10‐4,” Rumsfield spoke into the radio. “I think I’ve killed her.
She’s not moving.”
I heard his grip tighten on the gun as he inched a little closer and rolled me over with his foot. I didn’t fight him, just let his booted foot push me over, until he’d leaned over close.
He was searching my face for signs of life when I opened my eyes. He let out a cry of alarm, stepping backwards, both hands wrapped around the butt of his gun, the barrel pointed at my chest. I got to my knees, and he stepped back another few feet.
“Get down, Annalice. Get down, or I’ll shoot again!” Both hands were shaking, his index fingers stretched out along the stock to help steady the weapon, but he’d quit backing away from me. “Get down!” he yelled again.
I didn’t listen and got to my feet as he fired a warning shot over my head. He tried again. “Dammit, I mean it, Annalice! I will shoot again. Get down on the ground!”
I gritted my teeth against the pain. “Oh, I thought you meant it the first time.”
He emptied the clip into me. The surprise factor was gone, and I took the bullets better this time, knowing what to expect, but the force of the impact was still a shock to the system. I was still standing when the last one hit, but I’d staggered backwards a few feet with the shots, my arms jerking backwards and forwards with each impact. Blood was dripping from my fingertips onto the grass and pooling at my feet.
A few steps in front of me, Rumsfield was looking like he’d just seen a ghost, the gun hanging limply in his hands, his eyes round and incredulous as he took in the impossible. In the near distance, I could hear the scream of a police siren. I didn’t have much time.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rumsfield mouthed under his breath. His breathing was becoming very rapid, and he looked on the verge of a full‐blown panic attack.
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nbsp; I advanced on him with a fury. “What the hell is wrong with you? Coming here in the dark to spy on me! Haven’t you done enough to ruin my life? You’ve practically stolen my daughter, turned my mother against me, and done your level best to convince everyone I’m a murderer. You want to see how bad I really am? Huh? You’re going to now ’cause you just went and made me hungry,” I said as I backhanded him down. His body spun in the air and landed face down about five feet away.
I jerked him off the ground by his hair. One leg had snapped when he had hit the ground, and he yelled in pain as I pulled him to his feet. I sank my canines into him again and pulled out another couple units of blood. His lungs wheezed with the effort of breathing. His chest had flailed with the impact, and his right lung was sucking heavily, a section of ribs flailing out with every breath. His heart was struggling to pump what little blood he had left.
The sirens were seething up my driveway when I pulled my mouth away from his neck, and I was like a trapped animal. I surveyed the field, looking for a way out. I could make it to the back of the pasture and hide in the trees, but I had nowhere to go at dawn. The house stood beckoning, but I was certain it would be searched, and I’d burn in their hands. The ground at my feet was covered with blood—mine and his. All of it precious and desperately needed. Somehow, Michael was still breathing but barely, and even if he were dead, I didn’t have time to hide the body.
My first thought was to rake my nails across his neck and chest and keep with the animal attack theme. Luckily, common sense prevailed. Humanoid nails do not make a pattern on skin that resembles any animal prints. Nor would his skin just disappear out from under my nails when at some point I was questioned and DNA tested. And I would be questioned and DNA tested. There was no chance I could just disappear without a trace, leaving my daughter behind. Running out on her was not an option. The best I could hope for was to keep making Detective Michael Rumsfield look like a crackpot.
So I did the only logical thing I could think of, which was to rub some saliva into the wounds on his neck and race away to my cellar, hoping to God none of the responding officers could track like Michael. At least he was alive, which was more than I thought possible a few minutes ago. My other saving grace was that all of my body tissue and blood would degrade at first light.
Chapter 15
My driveway was a tunnel of swirling blue lights when I slipped into the cellar. I pulled the weather-beaten door as tightly shut as I dared without splintering it and stood at the entrance, waiting for the worst. If they found me, they were all dead. I’d kill each one of them to protect myself. I knew it to be the truth, and although I didn’t like the self-revelation, I couldn’t deny it. Inwardly, I prayed that it wouldn’t come to that and stood, not breathing and as silent as stone, at the doorway.
Three police cars had careened down my driveway. The first two came as a unit; the third running a handful of minutes behind. Like three voices singing the same part, the sirens echoed each other. Dogs bayed in the distance along with a pack of coyotes. In the darkness of the cellar, I couldn’t detect any light, and I leaned my head against the door as I listened to the footsteps pummeling across the yard towards the pasture.
I’d left Michael’s body about thirty feet from the cellar. His heart was beating desperately to keep him alive, his breathing shallow and rapid. Occasionally, he moaned, and I listened as at least five officers surrounded him.
“Secure the scene!” one officer yelled. Four sets of feet fanned out from his body as the hammers on the Glocks they carried were cocked. A couple of the officers cursed underneath their breaths; one whispered a prayer for safety. In the air leeching in through the air vent, I could smell overpowering fear and restless energy.
“Mike! Can you hear me? Wake up, man!” The voice belonged to the flashlight‐happy young cop from a few nights back. “Stay with me, Mike. The ambulance is on its way. You just gotta hold on.” In the distance, the ambulance sang the importance of its mission. “Officer down! Send more units to help secure the scene,” he spoke into his handheld radio. The button got stuck, and he clicked it again with more force.
“Mike? Wake up. Can you hear me?” Another cop was asking.
I heard Rumsfield rouse slightly. His breathing was labored, and his voice was muffled with weakness.
“It was her,” Mike’s voice wasn’t much more than a gasp. “Find her.”
“Who was it? Dr. Creed?” the first officer asked. “I don’t see anyone,” the second officer said.
“There’s blood everywhere. He definitely shot someone. Hey, Lyle, take some blood samples from several locations about two feet apart. Jeremy, get Mike’s gun and document how many bullets have been fired. Find the casings. Bag anything you see. Williams, take two men when the next squad gets here and search the house and barns. Be careful.”
I heard Officer Williams walk towards my driveway. Two more patrol cars were pulling in as he left the group gathered around Detective Rumsfield.
“Mike, you said on the handheld that you shot Dr. Creed and that you thought you’d killed her. Where is she? What happened?”
“She’s a monster,” Rumsfield said. His voice was hushed, and his teeth ground together. Most likely, he was going into shock and starting to shiver. He needed fluids and blood, a warming blanket. He needed a hospital. And a doctor. He needed me, and here I was, his near killer, locked in a black hole in the ground, unable to help him. The guilt was finally hitting me. He was right. I was some kind of monster.
The ambulance slid in only a minute or so behind the latest squad cars. In the background, the metal legs of a gurney dropped down as the bed was pulled from the ambulance. It made a rattling dance across the pasture as it was pushed towards the detective.
Rumsfield had quit talking by this point, cardiovascular shock had fully set in. His heart had sped up to a frenzied fight to keep what little blood he still had circulating. His breathing was so shallow, I doubted he could have filled the wings of a moth or wavered a blade of grass.
In the darkness of my underground abyss, I listened to the pieces of the laryngoscope being locked into place by a paramedic. He asked for cricoid pressure to help with the intubation, and I held my breath as he checked for open cords and slid the endotracheal tube into place. I couldn’t see the movements, but I knew them by heart. Every swing of the laryngoscope, the slap of the stethoscope on bare skin, the rise and fall of human lungs—all were sounds I knew better than my own voice. I should have been out there helping him.
Now intubated, the detective was bagged, the air sliding in and out with a hiss. A paramedic was issuing orders for IV fluids and a heating blanket. Finally, Mike was loaded onto the gurney and quickly pushed back towards the waiting ambulance. His heart was still beating, the last I heard, as the doors to the emergency vehicle were closed.
After Rumsfield was extricated, the remaining officers went into overdrive. The house and barn were searched, the entire pasture canvassed. They searched my car. I listened as one cop called my mother and warned her of what happened. Had she seen me, he asked.
The young officer who’d gotten to Rumsfield first attempted to follow his footsteps. He began where Rumsfield had fallen and then walked a perimeter walk, increasing the perimeter by about one foot each time he did so. His path carried him across the knoll that housed the cellar many times, but he never stopped, never seemed to realize that there was anything under his feet except the gentle rise in the topography. Underneath him, I continued to hold my breath and hope my hiding spot remained exactly that—hidden.
Every little while, someone would radio in and ask about Rumsfield. He was in critical condition, the voice on the other end said. Only time would tell, the voice proclaimed an hour later.
It was nearly six a.m. by the time the voice came back over the radio. The detective was fighting an uphill battle, but he was hanging on. He had eight cracked ribs, a collapsed lung, a flail chest on the opposite side, and he’d suffered massive blood loss.
He’d fractured his femur. They had already taken him to emergency surgery for a femur nailing. He’d been hypothermic when the paramedics arrived, and so he’d coded on the way to the hospital. A simple arrhythmia that had responded to IV meds, and he was still intubated and on the vent. But he was responding. Weak and seriously injured, but nothing he couldn’t survive, I knew. As long as nothing unexpected happened. Like a ventilator associated pneumonia or a blood clot. Or one of the many hundreds of things that can kill you in a hospital.
I closed my eyes and whispered a thanks to the heavens. Not because he was alive and would be fine but because he wasn’t dead, and it couldn’t be blamed on me. I was shameless, pathetic, and I knew it.
Sunrise was coming, and the cops were still working methodically, removing anything that seemed like evidence when I dug deeper into the dirt floor, pulled the tattered remains of the blankets across my shoulders and entered oblivion. I whispered a prayer before I shut my eyes, hoping for Ellie’s sake that they wouldn’t find me but knowing I didn’t really have any right to ask for such protection.
Chapter 16
I awoke in the cool, damp dirt of the cellar, which meant I hadn’t been found. I was relieved. And not just for Ellie’s sake. I didn’t truly have a death wish. I wanted to live. I simply had no idea how to do so without Ellie in my life. I took a moment to be grateful to whatever god would keep something such as me alive. A monster. Isn’t that what the detective had called me?