A Sucker Born Every Minute

by Lia Kane

  “Then where are you? Tell me where you are and I’ll come.”

  I winced, thinking once more about the promise I had made. Paul would understand, I told myself. He had to.

  “We’ve moved in with Dr. Paul Miles. I don’t know the exact address, but it’s a white two-story vacation home that he rents from his sister. It’s about 45 minutes south of Blue Sky in Bat Cave, near Hendersonville. The house overlooks a manmade lake. It’s just a few miles away from the Interstate.”

  “Bat Cave,” Victor said. “I know of the general area. I’ve been out there before and I think I know of the house you’re speaking of.”

  “Can you come now?”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He disconnected the call without his usual niceties. He didn’t ask if there was anything else that I – or the children – needed. He must have recognized how urgent the situation was.

  I put the phone down on the table. All I could do was wait for the arrival of Victor. Or Paul. Whoever got there first.

  Whoever came bearing blood.

  • • •

  Without realizing that I had fallen asleep, and without knowing how much time had passed, I jolted awake to the sound of my phone ringing. Whitney’s mobile number was on the display, along with a service message: 3.0 MINUTES OF PREPAID TALK TIME REMAINING. ADD MINUTES NOW TO CONTINUE SERVICE.

  “Hey… Whit?” I answered.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry to call you this late, Jerrika, but this is really important. It can’t wait.”

  “It’s okay. I’m just glad to hear from you. Does this mean –”

  “Just listen,” she interrupted me. “After you told me about someone setting fire to the Hope House, it got me thinking. I remember you said that it’s privately owned by someone who wants to remain anonymous. I stayed late at the bank this evening after everyone else left, and I went digging around in the mortgage and homeowners files to see if I could find out who owns the house.”

  “Did you find out?”

  “Yeah, I did. Victor Drake owns that house, Jerrika. He’s already filed an insurance claim to recover his losses. It was all a setup. He is not your friend.”

  The blood in my veins turned to ice.

  “I have to call the police,” I said, making a beeline toward the house phone on the wall. I picked it up to find that there was no dial tone. “Oh my God. Whitney, call the police for me. The house line is dead. He’s on his way over here. Maybe he’s here already and he cut the line. Please, call the police – and the fire department too.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know the address. I only know that it’s just off the interstate, in Bat Cave.”

  “Bat Cave? You’re joking, right?”

  “No, I’m not. Look, I’m talking on a prepaid cell phone that’s getting ready to cut off on me at any minute. Call the police and tell them it’s a two-story white vacation rental on a manmade lake…”

  “I’ll look up his address online.”

  “It’s not titled in his name,” I said. A loud beep sounded in my ear, and I pulled the phone away to see a 30 SECONDS OF TALK TIME REMAINING message on the display. “We’re going to get cut off in half a minute. The house is in his sister’s name. Her name is… oh crap, what is her name? Her name…”

  “Think, Jer, think!”

  I was drawing a blank. “Her name is… oh dear Lord please what is her name, what is her name…it starts with ‘M’… Mary… no it’s MARIA. Maria Miles, It’s Maria Miles!” I heard a click at some point while I was talking, but I wasn’t sure if the call was disconnected before Whitney heard me say Maria’s name.

  I looked down at the display. 0.0 MINUTES OF TALK TIME LEFT. A graphic of a phone with a slash mark through it blinked furiously in the upper left corner of the screen.

  But at the bottom of the screen, a smaller message appeared.

  EMERGENCY CALLS ONLY

  I pressed my finger on the 9, just as the lights went out in the kitchen, and the soft electronic hum of the refrigerator died.

  The power had been cut.

  The kitchen door swung open and a figure moved through the doorway. Though it was pitch black, there was just enough moonlight streaming through the windows for me to make out the silhouette of the man standing before me.

  “Paul!” I cried out. “We’re in trouble, we’ve got to get out of here –”

  “Put the phone down.”

  It wasn’t Paul’s voice.

  A second, much bigger figure moved through the doorway and into the house. Light reflected off of the barrel of the handgun that was pressed to the back of Paul’s neck.

  “Put the phone down, Jerrika,” said Victor. “I’m back to finish what I started. I apologize for not getting it right the first time, but this time I won’t fail.” He raised the butt of the gun above Paul’s head and brought it down on the back of his neck, striking him so hard that he collapsed onto the floor.

  Thankfully, Victor didn’t have to do the same to me.

  The room began to spin and I felt myself swaying on my feet. I reeled into a state of shock, losing consciousness with no assistance required.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I AWOKE IN darkness. My stomach rumbled with nausea, my head was throbbing, and the smell of gasoline was stinging my nostrils. The pounding inside my skull was like an eerie lullaby beckoning me back into unconsciousness. I knew that something was very, very wrong, but I didn’t want to deal with it. Overwhelmed with pain and exhaustion, I felt no shame in surrendering. I closed my eyes so I could let go and slide back into total darkness.

  “Jerrika!”

  My eyes snapped open at the sound of my name.

  “Jerrika, please wake up!”

  I turned my head, following the sound of the voice. Paul was sitting at my right side in one of the chairs from the dining room. His arms were behind his back. I blinked furiously as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and my short-term memory returned. I tried to stand up but found that my hands were bound behind me as well. My feet were tied to the legs the chair.

  “Oh dear God.”

  “Shhhh,” he whispered. “Keep your voice down.” He spoke through clenched teeth.

  “Where’s Victor?” I asked.

  “He’s upstairs. I’ve heard him walking overhead. I’m sure he’s trying to cover the entire house with gasoline so it will ignite fast and burn evenly. We can’t let him know that we’re conscious. I’m sure he’s counting on us being out of our wits when he lights it up, so I don’t want him to panic and speed things up.”

  “It was him all along,” I said, blinking in disbelief. “I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you. I can’t believe –”

  “No time for that,” Paul said, still keeping his voice hushed. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here, Jerrika.”

  “How long have we been unconscious?”

  “I don’t know, but it couldn’t have been that long.” He wrestled in his seat.

  “I was on the phone with my best friend just before Victor forced you inside. I told her to call the police and the fire department.”

  “Does she have the address?”

  “No, but I told her as much as I knew about the property. I described the location and gave her your sister’s name.”

  “Let’s hope she can send them to the right place. If not, we’re in trouble.” Paul continued to fidget in his chair, then let out a long groan. He cursed under his breath.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “I’m trying to free my hands. He tied us up with something very solid and very tight. I’m guessing it’s the nylon zip tie cuffs that police use. They’re virtually impossible to break with bare hands behind your back.”

  I tried to move my wrists. They wouldn’t budge. “How are we going to get out of them?”

  “You’re not,” he said. “You sit still and save your energy.” He let out a cry of pain and gritted his teeth together. I saw his left shoulder rise, and his entire
body shuddered.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  In one quick jolt, his left arm shot over his head and dropped into his lap. I felt something warm and wet hit my face, and realized that his blood had splattered on me. Paul leaned forward, screaming through clenched teeth and closed lips. In the faint moonlight streaming through the kitchen windows, I could see why. In trying to break the nylon tie cuffs, he had sliced the skin away from his wrist, a patch of which hung loosely over his knuckles. I shuddered and looked away, feeling another wave of nausea pass over me.

  “You tore your hand up!”

  “It was the only way I could get free,” he said.

  I wretched and spit vomit onto the floor.

  “Jerrika, look at me,” he ordered.

  I turned my face back toward him. His arm dangled by his side, blood pouring from his wrist like water from faucet.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Open your mouth.”

  I looked at him, horrified.

  “Do it,” he said. “If you don’t drink my blood and get your strength back, we’ll never get out of here alive.”

  “I don’t want to infect you,” I said.

  “It’s not going to matter if we’re all dead. My other arm and my legs are still tied to the chair, so I can’t move and I can’t take on Victor with one hand that’s all cut up. I don’t have a weapon and I don’t have any strength. You’ve got to drink my blood.”

  “I’d rather die than give you VAM.”

  “You won’t give me VAM,” he snapped. “Just hold your head back and I’ll let my blood run into your mouth. As long as there’s no contact, I won’t get infected.”

  I tilted my head back and he raised his arm to my face. His hand trembled as he aimed it over my mouth, letting his blood spurt down my throat. I swallowed hard, painfully aware with every mouthful that I was drinking the life out of him. Even if I didn’t infect him, he likely wouldn’t survive the blood loss; not after giving up two pints just hours before for the children. I drank and drank while his strength faded. His arm shook and trembled. He could hold it up for me no longer.

  “That’s enough,” I told him, when I felt that my stomach was nearly full. “Move your arm or it’s going to touch my mouth.”

  He didn’t have to be told twice. His arm dropped limply to his side. His breathing had slowed and I could tell he was on the verge of losing consciousness.

  “Paul,” I whispered, “what now? What am I supposed to do?”

  He turned his head slightly toward me. “Kill him,” he said. Then his head rolled forward and his eyes closed.

  “Paul,” I called out. “Paul! Open your eyes!”

  He remained silent and still. I couldn’t even hear him breathing. Tears of fear and frustration sprang to my eyes. “What am I supposed to do?” I cried softly.

  Then I heard footsteps as Victor came down the stairwell.

  Every muscle in my body tensed when he entered the kitchen and stood before me. The moonlight shining through the windows outlined his massive body with an eerie glow.

  “I wish I hadn’t cut the power,” he said softly. “I wish now that there was light so I could see your face just one more time, Jerrika.”

  “Go to hell,” I told him.

  “Maybe eventually, but not tonight. I’ve got work to do. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, by the way. I was waiting at the blood bank as I guessed that one of you would eventually show up with plans to do whatever was necessary to feed the poor little starving children of Hope House. I had no idea it would be the good doctor himself. I thought that turning a gun on him would make him cave and tell me where all of you were. But he wasn’t going to tell me, Jerrika; not even when I threatened his life. He was willing to take a bullet to protect all of you. The only reason I’m here now is because you called and gave me the location you promised not to share with anyone. Isn’t it amazing how a basic human need like hunger can compromise your integrity?”

  “Why,” I said. It was more of a demand than a question. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I know this must all come as a big shock. I do at least owe you an explanation.”

  “So explain it to me.” As Paul’s blood warmed my belly, my strength returned, and a calm settled over me. It seemed misplaced, considering I was probably minutes away from being torched alive.

  “Well, I did an awful lot of lying,” he confessed, “about pretty much everything. But you played along so well, Jerrika. You were so good, so trusting. You’ve made this very easy for me.”

  “You made our prescriptions disappear from the blood bank, didn’t you? You knew we’d need blood, and you kept telling me over and over again that you were my friend, and you’d do anything for me. You planted that seed so I’d call you when I needed to feed.”

  “Very good,” he said. “You know, it’s important to make friends. When I was hospitalized after that wreck I told you about, there were two women who did the bulk of the work in caring for me. Your blood bank nurse Lucy was one of them, and the other was Trish, who now works as the receptionist for Dr. Miles here. The hospital paid her minimum wage and gave her very little respect since she was just an assistant to them. But if a career in politics has taught me anything, it’s how important it is to make friends with the low man on the totem pole. Trish didn’t have a lot of power in that job, but once she went to work for Dr. Miles, she had a ton of power. She could delete standing prescriptions at the blood bank as a favor to a friend. All I had to do was ask.”

  “Then she wasn’t your friend. She’s just someone you used.”

  “But she believed she was my friend, and that’s how I was able to obtain her help when I needed it.”

  “So you had her fooled, you had me fooled too. Congratulations. What else have you lied to me about?”

  “Let’s see, for starters… there’s no way I could have given you my blood this evening. You see, my dear, I have VAM too.”

  I felt my jaw drop.

  “That’s how Trish and I bonded while I was in the hospital,” Victor continued. “She was a fellow VAMP, so she was very understanding of my needs. She kept the shades drawn so that my room stayed comfortably dark, and sneaked in extra blood she swiped from the hospital blood bank when I was hungry. And she still takes care of me now, whenever I need a favor.”

  I sat up with a jolt. “You’re a VAMP? How can that be? I’ve seen you eating food. How can you –”

  “A little deception on my part,” he confessed. “You may have noticed that I wipe my mouth a lot when I eat. Lots of men with facial hair do; that’s how one keeps a moustache and beard from catching scraps of food and looking like a caveman. In my case, however I just spit the food right back out into the napkin. I learned that little trick from an anorexic intern that I had several years ago. It’s important that I’m seen eating publicly and often, because a VAMP mayor in a town that is growing increasingly intolerant toward VAM would be a very bad fit.”

  “I still don’t understand how you pull it off. You’re not thin like most VAMPs.”

  “Which I owe to my very generous familiar donor, who keeps me well fed.”

  “It’s Kelly, isn’t it? She never left town. She’s in on this with you, isn’t she?”

  “It is Kelly, yes. Is she a willing accomplice? Not exactly.”

  I heard Paul gasp for air beside me. My heart knocked with rage against my ribcage. He was dying. And I would be soon as well, if I didn’t do something.

  But what? How was I supposed to get us out of this alive? I had to keep Victor talking until I could figure it out.

  “How is Kelly involved in this if she’s unwilling? Are you holding her hostage?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he freely admitted. “She’s shackled to the wall in my basement.”

  A chill went up my spine. “So she didn’t really resign. You kidnapped her and wrote a bogus letter of resignation.”

  “I had to. Such a shame, though. We had a good thin
g going, Kelly and I. She kept me fed all these years. She was in love with me, and was willing to drain her veins every day to keep me satisfied. I’m a big guy with a big appetite, so I needed a big familiar donor to feed me. Bigger bodies have more blood than smaller bodies. Did you know that, Jerrika? Kelly shunned my attention at first, just like you did. She was insecure about her weight, but I told her that she wasn’t going to scare me away that easily – a line that I’ve found works well in many situations,” he smirked. “I told her that I was one of those rare men who found bigger women attractive, so she stuffed her face every chance she got to keep gaining weight. She drew her blood for me every day, and it was never lacking in fat and protein. She supplemented it with the vitamins and growth hormones that are supplied to the orphanage. I owe my healthy physique to her.”

  “So you used her too.”

  “I wouldn’t say that I used her. I always rewarded her as best I could. She was working with the children as the VAM caseworker when I met her, but once Hope House was officially chartered, I made sure she got the job as the executive director. She had a nice salary and I made sure that she was lavished with community awards and public recognition. In the absence of being intimate with her – which I insisted against since I was VAM-Positive and she was VAM-Negative, those little rewards kept her happy, kept her believing I was on her side. I really believed she would have done anything for me, but I was wrong. A couple of weeks ago, when I told her about my plan and asked for her help, she told me that I had crossed a line and gone crazy. She was furious and said she wouldn’t let me go through with it.”

  “Your plan… you mean burning down the orphanage? Killing all of the children?”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “You’re a monster,” I said.

  He laughed. “I thought it upset you when people called us vampires monsters.”

  “I’m not a vampire. Neither are you. You’re just a monster.”

  “Oh, but we are vampires,” he said, taking a step closer to me. “You know you are, Jerrika. I can see that you’re getting your fangs already. I noticed even before you did. If you were going to live past this night, I would have recommended a good dentist in Blue Sky who can file them down and shape them back into normal canines, so you could keep on hiding your true self from the world.”