“Look, Officers. I don’t know why you’re asking me about this. It’s in public records. I was just a kid, my parents got mauled by a…” he trailed off, mumbling.
Grief throbbed in his chest and his heart was beating in a staccato of fear as he stepped back from his door and we entered his home.
The small wooden house was dark and lowly lit by lamps and a small hearth burned by a ragged looking rocking chair. A grey blanket hung over the arm and appeared frayed and aged. Books sat in sloppy stacks and heaps on the floor. Layers of dust and ground-in dirt told their own story of country life with a man too scared and old to give a damn about his home any longer. I wondered if Mr. Wesson had ever tried to really live even one day after his experience in the woods so long ago. Because here, James Wesson was only existing. Not living.
“Coyote, that’s what attacked ‘em?” I asked him, trying to sound neutral. Reluctantly he nodded but would not make eye contact with me.
“The other people who went missing that year—were those coyote attacks too?” Kenny asked him, trying to goad him into a response. “What about the people who went missing this year? Same thing? If we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it. Maybe even get those poor people back.”
With that, Mr. Wesson abruptly turned from us and made for a dusty kitchen counter where he acted like he had things to do. He picked up some obviously out-of-date spices off of a dusty rack and then put them right back. He was nervous and agitated, unsure what to do with his hands. And he didn’t want to look at us. The last thing he wanted to do was look at us.
“I seriously doubt that. Anyway, I don’t see what difference it would make… You wouldn’t believe me. Nobody ever did,” the poor man said dejectedly.
“Mr. Wesson,” I said trying a different approach with him. “What did you see?” My eyes were calm and reassuring as I looked at him with pity.
“Nothing. It moved too fast. It hid too well. I heard it though.”
“It came at night?” I asked, finally feeling like we were getting somewhere.
“Yeah, it got inside our cabin. I was sleeping inside by the fireplace. It didn’t smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it. You know of a creature that could do something like that? I didn’t even wake up until I heard my parents screaming.”
“It killed them?” Kenny asked.
“They must be dead. The creature took them into the night. Why it left me alive, I don’t know. I’ve been asking myself that ever since. There’s something evil in those woods. It was some sort of demon. But for some reason, it left me alone. It didn’t want me. Maybe because I was too little—not enough blood for it, I guess. I really don’t know and that has haunted me for my whole life.”
What he had just said sent electrical shocks through Kenny’s every cell. Sweat rolled in cold streams beneath his shirt. He never wanted to tell me how difficult things had been getting for him, but I knew. How could I not? I was connected to Kenny, as he was to me. I could feel what he was going through, what he was dealing with. I knew how hard it was for him. And I was really scared, feeling helpless. I didn’t want him to die or suffer at all, and I would have done anything to stop it.
A spreading dark cloud of uncertainty and uneasiness encroached on me and a warning tapped at the back of my awareness as Kenny and I drove down the road away from the man’s house.
The story that was told to us did not ease my mind or give me any hope about the disappearances. In fact, I was more concerned now than I had been when Kenny and I had first arrived at the hermit’s home. There were two troublesome things going on in the town. One—a ghost of an unknown origin was killing people with fear. Two—the victims were actually ex-vampires who were taking victims of their own from this area. It was imperative that Kenny and I find the origin of the ghost sickness, but it was equally important that we stop the human vampires before they killed again.
I would be lying if I said that the true motives behind my actions in this case were purely for the benefit of innocent strangers. Most certainly they were not. No matter how it started for me, I was now in this to save Kenny. If I solved this investigation, my friend would live. It was that simple. And things were rarely that simple for me.
My gloomy depression lessoned a bit as the sun blared through the thick of the trees, painting images of country life onto the road and hood of my truck. Birds were in performance around us—their songs were beautiful and rising up on the wind. Long blades of grass gleamed as droplets of rainwater hung on in the brisk breeze before finally giving in and misting.
The sky above turned a brilliant azure blue and the storm that was beating down on us last night seem to have been shoved back by the blazing sun. I, for one, was happy to see the sunshine and rolled down my window, enjoying the cool wind on my face.
“Well, if this is my last day on earth, it’s not half bad,” Kenny told me. And his words saddened me a bit. I did not want my friend to be so careless with his life; he would never have let me be so careless with my own. Kenny and I had been through too much together to ever let an unnatural death part us now.
“Don’t worry, Tim. I have no intention of leaving this world so soon. I haven’t given up yet,” he told me in my mind. It gave me comfort that he was in my thoughts and was worrying about me as much as I was worrying about him.
“So what do you think we’re dealing with here, Tim?”
I was happy he wanted to talk about it.
“Well, spirits and demons don’t have to unlock doors. If they want in, Kenny, they can just go through the walls. So it’s probably something else… It’s the vampires,” I said, feeling confident.
“But, now after Fabiana’s… victory, how could it be?” he asked. Fabiana had changed the playing field for vampires. If there were any left, that is.
“Maybe there’s more than one strain of vampire out there,” I offered after my long pause.
“Or maybe it is what we thought and the human forms of ex-vamps are out reliving their old habits. Whatever we’re talking about, it’s a creature and it’s corporeal, but it’s not what is killing me. That’s the ghost—we have to find the ghost.” Kenny said.
“You’re right. It’s the ghost, not the vampires, but I think if we find one, we’ll find the other.”
“We can’t let Harvey go out there. If there’s some kind of vampire clan or nest out there, we can’t let her be one more victim,” I said with determination.
“Oh? And what are we going to tell her? ‘You can’t go into the woods because of the great big monster’?” Kenny asked me.
“Yeah. That would work, I think.”
“We have to find those vampires before anyone else gets hurt.”
Chapter 19
1:55 p.m., May 6
Fabiana made her way down a brightly lit hall, and the fluorescent bulbs hurt her eyes. Even artificial light still bothered her. Passing through the living area of the wing where she was kept, she headed down the east side to a large dining hall, where the doors were propped open and waiting. Fabiana and several other patients filed into the room for their bland and predictable afternoon meal. It was not exactly Italian cuisine, but it would have to do.
The large open room was brightly lit and white lights blared away over long Formica tables. Several patients had already taken their seats at one of the tables and Fabiana could already see what the next few moments would be like. Their body language was more than telling to her overly developed brain. Even if more than a few of them weren’t twitchy and agitated, their hands shook almost uncontrollably as they fumbled with their plastic spoons. Their teeth scratched together and their eyes filled with blind anger. Fabiana could see the rage building inside their minds, getting ready to detonate at any moment, like a bomb. She knew it was coming, and she would be able to tell with utmost clarity when it did. Nothing seemed to be a surprise to her mind anymore and she made her way to the long, metal serving area of the dining hall.
Fabiana was gi
ven her meal on a tan plastic tray and took a seat alone at one of the side tables. Then it seemed that she was no longer in that hospital and in that dining hall. Now it was as if Fabiana were elsewhere, at least in her mind. Visions of the city streets of Seattle were flowing into her thoughts again and now her mind was working faster and faster.
Suddenly Fabiana could see a man, a human vampire. He was moving slowly along a small, narrow street in Ballard. People moved around him quickly, their shoulders barely missing his as he pulled his dirty grey hooded sweatshirt closer around him, and lights danced their advertisements in windows and billboards on Market Street. Cars thumped over old brick crosswalks and acoustic music bled from the open door of a small coffee house famous for its chai tea.
People raced by him, hoping to grab a bite on their lunch break and others waited for a bus to take them downtown. The man walked anxiously, his heart pounding so hard and loud that Fabiana could hear it through her mind. This man was close to death and she knew it.
Number four, she thought.
And as Fabiana looked upon his likeness, the fear that was in his mind was now in hers. Blackness raced at her in rapid, animated strikes and the terror that was consuming him now seemed to gobble her up. She closed her eyes as tears began to work loose from her eyelids and stream down her soft, white cheeks. Fearful and panicky images were all she could see now and she felt like a little girl alone in the dark, just as she had once been all those years ago in Hispania when her father was not around to show her the light. And just like before, the panic was overwhelming to her sensibilities. Then, with just as much velocity as they had come, the visions were gone.
Fabiana’s head fell limp in her waiting palms and she slumped down onto the cold Formica table next to her tray of her food. Gradually, she could feel her heart slowing a little at a time.
Fabiana tried to reach the man with her thoughts. It was the only thing she could do. She knew what his death meant—she had had the dream every night for months. ‘The blood dream’, she called it. Ghosts were rising and one thing was clear to her, there was an unnatural shift in the world around her.
The dream always came at her the same way every night. First, those eyes. And then the shadowy figure that looked out of the jungle would find her. She was scared and alone. The fear that always accompanied the dream was almost more than she could take. It was like every horrible, frightening thing that she had ever imagined as a child was coming at her at once, but a hundred times worse. Then there was that voice—that disturbing voice!—in her head.
Something was coming, reaching out for the lives of the vampires. She wondered if soon she would be dead or maybe Kenny or, god help her, possibly even Timothy.
Fabiana remembered the last time she had seen the signs of a blood dream. Her first encounter was with a spirit from the underworld. It was a day she would rather forget and yet she could not. It was a day of sadness and despair for her, and even bringing up the fleeting images in her mind just then caused a flood of mixed emotions that she would rather not deal with at that moment. Or ever, really. She was more concerned with the rage that was currently erupting within her.
It was very long ago in Japan, on the island Sado, that she had first encountered the ghost. Many years after the first writings of Way of the Warrior, the teachings of Bushido. The exotic islands were one hundred and fifty years away from the forced trade agreement between the U.S. and Japan known as the Treaty of Kanagawa. The year was 1704.
Fabiana was living alone on Sado, far from the reach of The Origin and the vampire family. She had been on the run for many years now. She had at last found a little peace on the small island, but it was a peace that was short-lived. She was soon haunted by a spirit from the underworld; it was lost but controlled by an evil force. It was a soul who had been disgraced in a battle of the Genpei War more than 500 years before.
The spirit attacked Fabiana and did everything he could to take control of her body. At first it stood, looking much like a man in full-plated armor. His sword was sheathed and a long arrow was protruding from his back. His eyes were black and when the ghost finally did move, there was nothing that Fabiana could do to stop his attack. The ghost possessed her flesh but could not completely overtake her mind, for she was so much more powerful and willful than it expected. The power of her mind was too great, so the evil force that was controlling the ghost did something horrible. To this day, it was difficult for Fabiana to even think about it.
The ghost consumed the minds of the poor and innocent men and women of the village. Within a day, they had all died, killed by fear and nothing else. And Fabiana could do nothing to stop the death around her. The open and warm people that had welcomed her into their village were dead, taken by a force unknown to her, and now it seemed it was happening all over again.
Suddenly a table flipped and men in white lab coats swarmed the room, their big clumsy hands grabbing and restraining the crazed patients in front of Fabiana. Angered and bloodshot eyes stared out at Fabiana as the wild ones were taken away. She had merely been sitting there with her head down, her long, black hair drooping over her eyes, hiding her from everyone else. She wanted nothing to do with what was occurring around her at that moment.
A large man fought frantically against the powerful grip of one of the orderlies but somehow got the upper hand. With a crack of knuckles against bone, one of the nurses was hammered to the floor. Swing after swing, the demented patient was gaining the advantage, until suddenly his body was thrown against the white wall behind him. Fabiana held her head down and would not look at the man. She did not want make it public that she was the one restraining him.
Within an instant, the orderlies were back on their feet and reacting to this new opportunity for restraint. They were on him, and Fabiana released her hold. His massive body slid down the smooth surface of the wall and back to the floor of the dining hall. If she had any doubts about what powers she might still possess, they were now gone. She was a potent force, to be sure. She always had been and always would be, and for a brief moment, she felt clear and almost free. Fabiana felt she could finally handle this place.
A smile had slipped over her face and for a short while, she relished the joy she felt in using her abilities once more. That one occurrence was the first time she had attempted to harness her power outside of reading the minds of the doctors and nurses around her room. There was the burst of anger she had felt that one time, and one of the orderlies’ hair had caught fire, but she wasn’t entirely sure that she was really responsible for that. Her mind had been so muddled then.
But now Fabiana was sure of her talents again and she needed to be careful to control her emotions. She wasn’t even sure what abilities she still had left in her. She hoped all of them were still waiting for her to exercise her power. She knew that she could read minds, and it was now obvious that she could move objects and people telekinetically. She sat there wondering what else she could still do. Could she levitate? She didn’t know. Then the flames of the fire came to her thoughts once more. If she could catch someone’s hair on fire, could she still control the flames as she once had?
Someday maybe she could test all that out, but this was neither the place nor the time for such whimsical wondering. Tim and Kenny needed her. And if the blood dreams were truly starting again, Tim would need her soon. Fabiana would have to be ready with a clear head.
Chapter 20
2:05 p.m., May 6
Even during my most burdened, distracted moments, I appreciated working a case. I was always aware that the job was difficult and came with many sacrifices. My work, my child, and my family all seemed to be taken from me. Even my partner—and best friend—was gone. Even though we were back together again for this short time, I knew that our relationship was in danger of being ripped away from me. Soon Kenny might die and I had no words to describe my sense of hopelessness. For what could I say but ‘I’m truly sorry’?
‘Sorry’ seemed way too trivial a word f
or such a dire situation.
Kenny sat silently next to me as long, old limbs of dilapidated trees swayed by the passenger window of the truck. We were parked on the side of the road near Jim Wesson’s cabin and I had my laptop open and glowing in front of me.
“We just have to go back,” I said, looking through Toledo records. Old newspaper articles and reports moved over the screen until I found what I was looking for.
Kenny’s mood had not changed for the better. In fact, it seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. I came across an old article that struck my attention and I began to talk to Kenny about it.
“No way! How did we not see this before? Check it out—a racially motivated murder back in the ‘80s,” I said, turning the screen toward Kenny.
“A young Hispanic youth was killed in the summer of ‘86, just outside of Toledo. It happened just south of the airport. The airport… Does that sound familiar?” I asked.
“Over by the airport is where the third victim was supposed to be staying,” Kenny told me.
“Right.”
I scrolled down the page and read on.
“‘There were no witnesses to the crime in ’86, but all reports on the condition of the body told the story of a horrible death. Large slash marks showed evidence of massively severe trauma to the shoulders and hip. And a private owner of one of the planes on the airport reported damage to his propellers several days later.’ It seems there was no investigation into that either.”
The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream Page 12