Blood Harvest (Book 1): Blood Fruit

by Goodman, D. J.

  “How did you get away?”

  “Screaming and confusion. Door left unlocked. Screaming.”

  “How did you find me though? Why didn’t you go back to Sheboygan? Mom’s still there. Or Dad. He lives in Beaver Dam now. Wouldn’t either of them maybe have been closer?”

  “Followed the emotions. The ones that loved me. I felt yours. Can you feel mine?”

  What she said didn’t really make sense, but it was strange. Peg almost could feel like she felt what Zoey felt. Maybe she was just imagining it too well, but she thought she had a handle right now on just how confused and terrified Zoey had been. Or rather, still was. Whoever had taken her and whatever this harvest time thing was all about Zoey was scared witless.

  Peg had assured Zoey that she would be absolutely safe here as long as she stayed in the basement and kept absolutely quiet. Between Zoey and her mother Peg now had a little more information to go on so she might feel comfortable telling Tony at some point, but not for now. She still didn’t have enough information that she could go to the police, although even if she did she had no idea how she might start trying to explain that her sister was now a vampire.

  Upstairs Peg had found Tony playing with Brendan in the living room and she’d joined them. Tony didn’t ask how the phone call had gone, but when he looked at her face he seemed relieved. Peg left it at that. She didn’t want to come up with any more lies for now, and she was content and happy. Indeed, she felt lighter than she had in years. After just a few simple words out of her sister’s mouth it was like all the years of pain and self-hatred had vanished.

  Peg threw off her blankets and stretched with a pleasured grunt. She was still a little sore after last night, but not as much as she would have expected. Once Brendan was in bed (and thankfully stayed there, since he’d started to learn that mommy and daddy couldn’t say no to his sweet face when he hobbled in and asked to sleep in their bed with them) they’d made love like they hadn’t since they’d first started dating. Even Tony had been surprised and worn out after they were finished. Peg had still felt like she could go another couple rounds, though. She didn’t know what it was, but she’d had energy enough for the whole night if they’d needed it.

  The clock on the nightstand said it was 9:20, which meant she had about forty minutes until V showed up. That gave her enough time to eat, shower and prepare Zoey for a visitor. It was even possible that after a full night in a safe place she might be better able to communicate and they could all figure out what to do next. Peg had a brief vision of her and V swarming down on the nest of whatever vampire had turned Zoey and staking him. That was almost comical, Peg being reborn as Buffy for a new generation. As ludicrous as the thought might be, though, she felt like she had the energy for it this morning. She felt like she could even do sprints around the block, which considering how out of shape she was proved to be an even funnier vision than her as Van Helsing.

  She instinctively looked in on Brendan as she passed his bedroom even though he of course wasn’t there. Tony had said that since she wasn’t feeling good he would get Brendan ready and take him to the sitter before work. Downstairs she winced at the brightness outside and shut all the blinds. It was the first warm and rainless day in far too long, but Zoey wouldn’t be able to appreciate that. At least it was nice to know she wouldn’t burst into flames if Peg forgot one. She’d managed to get here during the day, after all, although Peg still had to ask her how she’d managed to get through a small town neighborhood during the day while wearing nothing but dirt and shit.

  At the basement door she stopped for a second, considering whether or not she should call down and ask Zoey if she wanted any breakfast, although a better question would be whether or not she could eat breakfast. Peg had never stopped to ask if she could or needed to eat regular food as well as blood. Come to think of it, she wasn’t really sure how she was going to keep Zoey supplied with blood in the first place. She supposed they could do something like last night, but Peg would have preferred that be a one-time thing. The moment had passed and they would need to come up with something more sustainable.

  Peg went to the kitchen and opened up the freezer, looking for any red meat she might be able to squeeze a little blood from. There was a steak, but it was frozen solid. Peg would just have to make a stop at the meat market sometime today. Hopefully Zoey would be able to hold on until then.

  She grabbed the handle to the fridge, paying less attention to what she was doing than the plans she had to make for the day. Zoey’s introduction to V might be a bit hairy. As she opened the door she tried to think of some line to V that wouldn’t sound crazy, although most of the things that came to mind were movie lines. That would probably be too cheesy, but…

  Tony’s head fell out of the fridge and bounced on the floor.

  Book Two: Harvest

  Chapter Eleven

  If there was one thing Peg took away from her previous experiences with horrible situations, it was how, no matter what the situation, the mind would latch onto and remember the least appropriate details. In this case, the detail was that Tony’s head tried to roll but was prevented by his bulbous nose. She’d always ribbed him about its size, saying that if he stayed outside for too long a pigeon was likely to shit on it. Even now, that nose was doing its best to be comical.

  Then Peg remembered exactly what she was looking at and she screamed.

  She backed away from the fridge, hitting the counter behind her at an odd angle and finding herself slipping to the floor. She made no effort to catch herself. That would have required her to look around at something else in her environment other than the refrigerator.

  The force of the head as it came out had forced the door the rest of the way open. It swung about three quarters of the way open and then stopped, allowing Peg a perfect view of everything inside. From her current place on the floor she could see the other side of the fridge next to the counter, a thin space that she hadn’t been able to see when she’d come in from the hallway. Someone had taken all the shelves and food out, stacking them neatly off to the side. Their place inside the fridge was now occupied by the rest of Tony’s body. The interior light was partially blocked, giving Tony an aura around him like a holy man descending from a mountain. His limbs were bent and twisted at odd angles and in some places the skin protruded where the bones underneath pushed out in ways they shouldn’t. He was still naked, the exact state Peg last remembered him in after their sexual Olympics the night before.

  Peg was somewhat aware that she was making noises, probably something like denial of the moment repeated over and over, but she didn’t really pay much attention to that. She couldn’t stop staring at the head. It had come to rest at an angle that made it look almost like Tony was winking at her, like he was trying to tell one last joke or impart some final piece of wisdom that she would have to decode.

  After several minutes her thoughts finally pulled themselves together enough for her to recognize two or three of them from among the chaotic jumble racing through her head. Somewhere among the oh no no no’s and this can’t be right this isn’t real’s the details started to give her something like a picture of what might have happened. He was naked. There were no clothes around. So he’d been…

  (killed)

  (no no he can’t be dead)

  …this had happened to him before he’d even gotten dressed for the day. Which meant he hadn’t taken Brendan to the sitter’s, so…

  Oh my God, where’s Brendan?

  Even though standing up took a tremendous mental effort she still found herself fully capable of running up the stairs and into Brendan’s room.

  “Brendan? Brendan honey, are you here? Brendan!”

  His bed was empty. None of the clothes she’d laid out for him the night before had been moved. There was no sign of the pajamas he’d been wearing.

  That’s because they’re still on his dead body somewhere in the house, Peg thought, then, immediately responding to the voice in her own head,
Fuck you! He’s not dead! He’s not fucking dead you bitch!

  “Brendan! Brendan honey, answer mommy! Answer mommy or I’m going to…” Going to what? She knew the ridiculousness of her words but she was powerless to keep them from coming from her mouth. She ran into the bathroom, not really sure what she expected to find but not finding it anyway. Then her bedroom, then back downstairs. The living room. The dining room. The downstairs bathroom. He wasn’t anywhere. She found herself back in the kitchen against her own will. She refused to look at the refrigerator again, but she knew she had to look everywhere else. Tony was here, so Brendan might be too. She actually hoped with all her soiled soul that he wasn’t, though. If he was here he could only be in the same shape as Tony. He could be…

  No! Don’t think it. Don’t you dare think it.

  She looked in all the cupboards, the pantry, the tiny spaces here and there where someone might shove a small body. She didn’t see anything.

  Peg stopped in the middle of checking the trashcan and again collapsed bonelessly on the floor, unable to control her own body anymore or the giant heaving sobs threatening to make her pass out from lack of air. There were other places in the house she could look. The house had a small crawlspace that passed as an attic, and there were multiple closets, nooks, and crannies throughout the house. He could be in any of them, possibly even alive and cowering, but she doubted it. Tony hadn’t even had time to get dressed, so that implied that whoever had done this to him was fast, probably very strong too if they were able to overpower him. If this person could get Tony there was no way he or she wouldn’t have been able to get Brendan as well.

  I know you’re not really in the most rational state, the voice in her head told her, but think about that for a second. Someone killed Tony. They might have killed Brendan. So…

  The rational voice didn’t need to complete the thought because the rest of her mind was finally able to take back over for itself. She stood up and, even though her hand was shaking, she reached for the knife block on the counter and grabbed the largest chef’s knife they had. Because none of this made sense until she looked at it a certain way. Tony had gotten up several hours earlier. The person who had done this to him, and possibly done something to Brendan, should have done it to her as well. She’d just been sleeping, completely worn out. She should have made a far easier target than Tony. Unless, that was, the person had a reason not to kill her specifically.

  Even though parts of her mind screamed for her to stop she got closer to Tony’s head and bent down low to take a closer look. She felt like she had to shut down a certain part of herself to get this close to it without losing her mind. Indeed, most of her emotions seemed to vanish for just that moment. It was the only way to deal with this in the way she knew she had to.

  She took a closer look at Tony’s neck. The cut that had taken off his head was far from clean. This hadn’t been done with any kind of blade or weapon. The flesh was ragged and bits of unidentifiable insides hung out from the throat in grisly chunks. Several inches of bone stuck out, and although Peg knew very little about anatomy she thought she could at least recognize the vertebrae. The head didn’t look like it had been cut off. It looked like it had been ripped off.

  And there were marks around the throat. Marks that looked suspiciously like ragged teeth marks.

  Peg stood back up. There was one last place in the house where she hadn’t tried looking yet. Quietly, trying to keep the knife as steady as possible in her hand, she went to the basement door.

  The door opened silently, no squeaking hinges, the product of Tony’s obsessive need to keep their lovely home in perfect order. Peg hit the light switch and watched as the bottom of the stairwell washed in light. She’d half-expected to see Brendan’s ruined little body or a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs, but from here the basement looked just as perfectly normal as everything else in the house. She went down slowly, trying to step lightly and avoid any creaking that might alert the basement’s resident that she was coming, although Peg knew that wouldn’t do any good. She’d been screaming and crying pretty loud from the kitchen. She didn’t know whether vampires had greater than average hearing along with all their other abilities, but even an average person would have been fully aware by now that Peg had discovered the gruesome scene in the fridge. She kept the knife in front of her all the way down the stairs, her hands no longer shaking and her heart and breathing starting to return to normal. She felt a strange calm come over her even though she knew that she should be more frightened now than she ever had been in her entire life.

  Her body stayed tense but controlled as she looked first into Tony’s corner (not anymore it’s not, she thought, then gave herself a hard mental slap). It was empty, but that was exactly what she had expected. She turned instead to the darker portion of the basement, moving right for the crawlspace between the furnace and water heater. The smart thing to do would have probably been to check all her blind spots and make sure nothing was about to jump out at her, but she didn’t think that would be needed. She’d been spared, after all. There was no reason to let her live before only to kill her now.

  Peg’s grip tightened on the knife. She was going to change that. She was going to make this thing give her a reason.

  It sat on the floor just out of easy reach through the opening, not exactly cowering yet still far from standing tall and defiant. Peg wasn’t quite sure what to think of that. It was still wearing her clothes and giving every impression of the traumatized victim despite everything it had done. Peg didn’t know whether to feel pity for it or righteous anger. Surprisingly its mouth was clean. Peg had expected to see it with Tony’s blood still covering its lips, but Zoey must have licked them completely clean.

  “Zoey,” Peg said. Despite the calmness she still felt there was a quaver in her voice.

  “Peg,” Zoey said. Peg couldn’t tell from her voice whether she was scared or confused or anything.

  “Where’s my son?” Peg asked.

  “Gone,” Zoey said.

  “You bitch,” Peg said. Her voice cracked. “You unbelievable fucking bitch. After I let you into my house. Why did you do it?”

  Zoey looked down at her hands folded and resting on her legs. “I’m sorry.”

  Those two words were all it took to make Peg lose it. With a guttural scream she lunged at Zoey, trying to stab her through the minimal opening. She felt the hot metal scald her skin but didn’t care for now. Without pushing herself all the way through all the knife did was slice the air inches from Zoey’s face. Zoey flinched back but made no other attempt to retreat. As Peg made it through the gap Zoey grabbed her knife hand by the wrist. Peg was already off balance as she came into the hidey hole and the force of Zoey’s movement was enough to tip her over onto Zoey. Zoey rolled and fell on her back with Peg on top, the knife pointed straight down at Zoey’s neck. Peg tried to push down, anxious for this thing’s blood to spill just like Tony’s. She wasn’t even sure if this could kill her, but she found that didn’t matter much right now. She just wanted the blood. She wanted some form of retribution, any at all. Just let the blade sink down, pucker and then puncture the flesh of the thing that…

  She’s not trying to kill me, Peg thought. I’m trying to kill her, so why isn’t she trying it back?

  Peg eased off some but she kept the knife in place pointed down at her sister. She’d already seen more than enough evidence that Zoey was fully capable of crushing her wrist right now and then pinning Peg down to make a meal out of her.

  “Fight,” Peg said. “Fight back, you fucking bitch!”

  Zoey shook her head. Her lip quivered and her eyes started to water, or at least she thought they did. It was hard to tell in the dimness.

  “Why?” Peg said. “Just tell me why.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The haze of rage faded just enough from Peg’s mind that she started to realize something was wrong here. Zoey still hadn’t said she’d actually done anything.

&nb
sp; “Did you kill them?” Peg finally asked after several moments of deep breaths.

  “I’m sorry. My fault.”

  She didn’t do it. She couldn’t have. There was no way. Peg eased up a little more, adjusting herself over Zoey so she no longer pinned the girl down. Except Zoey had never really been pinned. She could have gotten out of it just as easily as she could have broken Peg’s wrist.

  “What’s your fault, Zoey? What happened?”

  “It was here. It was looking for me. I heard it. It came in. It didn’t need to be invited. It came in. I stayed here. I hid.”

  Peg looked down at the knife in her hand, suddenly horrified at what she had almost done. She didn’t understand how she could have possibly believed that Zoey had done this. No matter what she had become Zoey was and always would be her sister. She tossed the knife aside and got off of Zoey.

  “What was here?” Peg asked. “What did this?”

  “Servant of a mish-mash. Minion of a combination of things.” The tears started to run over her skin. Zoey put her hands up to her eyes as though trying to keep them from seeing some terrible creature floating in her vision. “It has no brain. Eyes that walk. Time to harvest me.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The hardest part was trying to figure out what she could possibly do next. It was like that moment eleven years ago except so much worse. There was nothing that could be done to make anything better so the only thing she had in her power to do was try to understand. And this time she knew she couldn’t call the cops. It wasn’t a matter of not trusting them even after all these years. It was simply that there was nothing they could do. They were not prepared for the fact that some unknown thing had come into her home looking for her vampire sister and taken her son.

  At least there was that silver lining, if such a thing could possibly be classified under those terms. Brendan was still alive somewhere, or at least had still been alive when he’d vanished from the house. This was according to the note they had found in the fridge. Then again, “note” was hardly the correct way to describe it.