Dead Reckoning

by Harris, Charlaine

  Though it was easy to be angry at Jannalynn because I didn’t like her, when I thought about it, Alcide should have known better than to take such bad advice. If Alcide had been stupid for giving her idea credence, Jannalynn had been mean for thinking of it in the first place. I understood now that we were enemies. It was my day for unpleasant realizations.

  Sam was absorbed in going over the books. When I discerned from his thoughts that he was trying to figure out how he could manage to pay his bill with our beer distributor, I decided that today he had more problems than he could handle. He didn’t need to hear that his girlfriend had embarrassed me.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was between Jannalynn and me, no matter how tempted I might be to inform Sam about his girlfriend’s true character. I felt like a smarter and better person after getting my head straight on that, and I hustled food and drinks with a smile and a pleasant word the whole shift. I had some good tip money in consequence.

  I worked late to make up my time, and that was okay because Holly was late in turn. It was after six when I went into the office to fetch my purse. Sam was slumped at his desk, looking pretty bleak. “You need to talk about something?” I offered.

  “With you? I figure you already know whatever I’m thinking about,” he said, but not as if that bothered him. “The bar’s in a slump, Sook. This is the worst patch I’ve ever been through.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be completely stale or practically untrue. Something always turns up. It always seems darkest before the dawn. When God closes a door, he opens a window. All things happen for a reason. Into every life a little rain must fall. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. In the end, I just bent and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You call me if you need me,” I said, and went out to the car feeling troubled. I put my subconscious to work on a plan to help Sam.

  I loved summer, but sometimes I hated daylight saving time. Though I’d worked late and was going home, it was still glaring sunlight and would be for maybe another hour and a half. Even after darkfall, when Eric and Pam could come to the house, we’d still have to wait for Colton to get off work.

  As I got into my car, I noticed there was a chance it would be dark earlier than usual. An ominous mass of dark clouds seethed to the west . . . really dark clouds, moving fast. The day would not end as beautifully and brightly as it had begun. I’d just been remembering my gran saying, “Into every life a little rain must fall.” I wondered if I’d been prophetic.

  I’m not scared of storms. Jason once had a dog that’d dashed upstairs to hide under Jason’s bed every time he heard a crack of thunder. I smiled at the memory. My grandmother hadn’t approved of dogs in the house, but she hadn’t been able to keep Rocky out. He’d always found a way when the weather turned bad, though that way had less to do with the dog’s cleverness than with Jason’s soft heart. That was one good thing about my brother; he’d always been kind to animals. And now he is one, I thought. At least once a month. I didn’t know what to think about that. While I’d been looking up at the sky, the clouds had been moving in closer, and I needed to get home and make sure my departed guests had left all the windows closed.

  Despite my anxiety, after I looked at my gas gauge I realized I had to fill up the car. While the pump was working, I stepped out from under the awning at the Grabbit Kwik to look up. The sky was ominous, and I wondered if we were under a tornado watch. I wished I’d listened to the Weather Channel that morning.

  The wind picked up, and bits of trash whipped across the parking lot. The air was so heavy and damp that the pavement smelled. When the gas pump cut off, I was glad to hang up the nozzle and climb in the car. I saw Tara going by, and she glanced my way and waved. I thought of her impending baby shower and her impending babies, with a little guilt. Though I had put everything in line for the shower, I hadn’t thought about it all week, and it was only two days away! Surely I ought to be concentrating on the social event rather than a murder plot?

  It was a moment when my life seemed . . . complex. A few drops of rain splashed on my windshield as I pulled out of the parking lot. I hoped I had enough milk for breakfast, because I sure hadn’t checked before I left the house. Did I have some bottled blood to offer the vampires? Just in case, I stopped at the Piggly Wiggly and got some. Grabbed up some milk, too. And some bacon. I hadn’t had a bacon sandwich in ages, and Terry Bellefleur had brought me some early fresh tomatoes.

  I slung my plastic bags into the front seat of the car and dove in after them, because the rain abruptly slammed down in earnest. The back of my T-shirt was soaked, and my ponytail hung sodden on my neck. I reached in the backseat and pulled my umbrella into the front. It was an old one my gran had used to cover her head when she’d come to watch me playing softball, and when I looked at the faded stripes of black and green and cerise, I felt a smile on my face.

  I drove home slowly and carefully. The rain drummed on the car and bounced up from the pavement like tiny jackhammers. My headlights hardly seemed to make a dent in the rain and the gloom. I glanced at the dashboard clock. It was already after seven. Of course I had plenty of time before the Victor Murder Committee met, but it would be a relief just to get to the house. I considered the dash I’d have to make from the car to the house. If Dermot had gone out already, he would have left the door to the back porch locked. I’d be completely exposed to the rain while I fumbled with the keys and my two heavy bags of milk and blood. Not for the first or last time, I thought of spending my savings—the money from Claudine’s estate and the lesser sum of Hadley’s legacy (Remy hadn’t called, so I had to assume he’d meant he truly didn’t want her money)—in getting a carport attached to the house.

  I was thinking of how I’d situate such a structure, and wondering how much it would take to build it, as I pulled up behind the house. Poor Dermot! By asking him to go out tonight I’d doomed him to a miserable, wet time in the woods. At least, I assumed he’d think it would be miserable. Fairies had a whole different scale than I did. I could lend him my car, and he could drive to Jason’s, maybe.

  I peered through the windshield, hoping I’d see a light on in the kitchen signaling Dermot’s presence.

  But the door to the back porch was hanging open over the steps. I couldn’t see well enough through the gloom to tell if the house door was open, too.

  My first reaction was indignation. That’s so careless of Dermot, I thought. Maybe I should have told him he had to leave, too. But then I thought again. Dermot had never been so careless, and there was no reason to think he would be today. Instead of being irritated, maybe I should be worried.

  Maybe I should listen to that alarm bell clanging away in my head.

  You know what would be smart? Reversing the car and getting the hell out of here. I yanked my gaze away from that ominous open door. Galvanized, I threw the car into reverse and backed up. I put the car in drive and turned the wheel to rocket down the driveway.

  From the woods a sizable young tree crashed down across the gravel, and I slammed on the brakes.

  I knew a trap when I saw one.

  I turned the car off and threw open my door. While I was scrambling out, a figure lurched from the trees and ran toward me. The only weapon to hand was the quart of milk in its plastic jug, and I grabbed the handles of the plastic bag and swung it high. To my amazement, I connected, and the jug burst, and milk went everywhere. Absurdly, I had a flash of fury at the waste, and then I was scrambling for the trees, my feet slipping on the wet grass. Thank God I’d worn sneakers. I ran for my life. He might be down, but he wouldn’t stay down, and maybe there would be more than one. I was sure I’d caught a flicker of movement on the periphery of my vision.

  I didn’t know if the ambushers intended to kill me, but they weren’t going to invite me to play Monopoly.

  I was soaking wet within seconds from the rain and the water I knocked off the bushes as I blundered through the woods. If I lived through this, I swo
re, I’d start running at the high school track again, because my breath was sawing in and out of my lungs. The summer undergrowth was thick, and the vines snaked everywhere. I didn’t fall, but it was only a matter of time.

  I was trying hard to think—that would be a good thing—but I seemed to be possessed by a rabbit mentality. Run and hide, run and hide. If I was being abducted by Weres, it was all over, because they could track me through the woods in a jiffy even if they were in human form, though the weather might slow them down.

  Couldn’t be vampires, the sun hadn’t set.

  Fairies would have been much more subtle.

  Humans, then. I dashed around the edges of the cemetery, since I’d be so easy to spot on the open ground.

  I heard noise in the woods behind me, and I headed for the only other sanctuary that might offer me a good hiding place. Bill’s house. I didn’t have enough time to climb a tree. It seemed I’d leaped out of my car an hour ago. My purse, my phone! Why hadn’t I grabbed my phone? I could picture my purse sitting on the car seat. Crap.

  Now I was running uphill, so I was close. I paused at the huge old oak, about ten yards from the front porch, and peered around it. There was Bill’s house, dark and silent in the pouring rain. When Judith had been in residence, I’d left my copy of Bill’s key in his mailbox one day. It had only seemed right. But that night he’d left a message on my answering machine telling me where the spare key was. We’d never said a word to each other about that.

  I pelted up onto the porch, found the key taped under the armrest of the wooden outdoor chair, and unlocked the front door. My hands were so tremulous it was amazing I didn’t drop the key and that I got it into the lock correctly the first time. I was about to step in when I thought, Footprints. I’d leave wet footprints everywhere I went in the house. I’d advertise my location like a blue light Kmart special. Crouching down by the railing around the porch, I pulled off my clothes and shoes, and dropped them behind the thick azalea bushes surrounding the house. I squeezed out my ponytail. I shook myself briskly like a dog, to rid myself of as much water as I could. Then I stepped into the quiet dimness of the old Compton house. Though I didn’t have time to mull it over, it felt decidedly weird to be standing in the foyer naked.

  I looked down at my feet. One splash of water. I rubbed my foot over it and took a big step onto the worn runner lying in the hall that led back to the kitchen. I didn’t even glance into the living room (which Bill sometimes called the parlor) or venture into the dining room.

  Bill had never told me exactly where he slept during the day. I understood that such a piece of knowledge was a huge vampire secret. But I’m reasonably alert, and I’d had a while to figure it out while we were dating. Though I was sure there was more than one such secret place, one lay somewhere off the pantry in the kitchen. He’d remodeled the kitchen and installed a hot tub to create sort of a spa area rather than a place to cook—which he didn’t need—but he’d left a small separate room intact. I didn’t know if it had been a pantry or a butler’s room. I opened the new louvered door and stepped in, shutting it behind me. Today the oddly high shelves contained only a few six-packs of bottled blood and a screwdriver. I knocked on the floor, on the wall. In my panic, and the noise of the storm outside, I couldn’t detect any difference in the sound. I said, “Bill, let me in. Wherever you are, let me in,” like a character in a grim ghost story.

  I didn’t hear a thing, naturally, though I listened for a few seconds in utter stillness. We hadn’t shared blood in a long time, and it was still daylight, though it wouldn’t be for long.

  Crapola, I thought. Then I spied a thin line in the boards, right by the doorsill. I looked very carefully and realized the thin line continued around the sides. I didn’t have the time to examine any closer. My heart thudding, out of sheer instinct and sheer desperation I dug the screwdriver into the line and levered up. There was a hole, and into it I dove, taking the screwdriver with me and closing the trap behind me. I realized the shelves must be set high to allow the door to swing up. I didn’t know where the hinges were hidden and I didn’t care.

  For a long, long moment I just sat naked in a heap on the packed dirt and panted, trying to catch up with myself. I hadn’t moved that fast, that long, since . . . since the last time I’d been running from someone who wanted to kill me.

  I thought, I’ve got to change my way of life. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought that, the first time I’d resolved to find a safer way to live.

  It wasn’t any occasion for deep thinking. It was time for praying that whoever it had been knocking trees down across my driveway, that selfsame “whoever” wouldn’t find me in this house stark naked and defenseless, hiding in the crawl space with . . . Where was Bill? Of course, it was very dark with the hatch shut, and since there weren’t any lights on in the house, nothing was coming through the outline of the opening because of the pantry door and the rain-dark day. I patted around in the dark looking for my unwitting host. Maybe he was in another hiding spot? I was surprised at how big a space this was. While I searched, I had time to imagine all sort of bugs. Snakes. When you’re buck naked, you don’t like the idea of stuff touching areas that rarely meet bare ground. I crawled and patted, and every now and then jumped as I felt (or imagined) tiny feet against my skin.

  Finally I located Bill over in a corner. He was still dead, of course. Somewhat more to my astonishment, my fingers informed me that he was naked, too. Certainly that was practical. Why get your clothes dirty? I knew he’d slept that way outside on occasion. I was so relieved to make contact with him that I really didn’t mind whether he was clothed.

  I tried to figure out how long the whole trip back from Merlotte’s had taken, how long I’d dashed through the woods. My best estimate was that I had about thirty or forty-five minutes before Bill woke.

  I crouched by him, gripping the screwdriver, listening with every nerve to catch whatever sound I could. It could be that they—the mysterious “they”—wouldn’t spot my track here, or my clothes. If my luck was consistent, of course they’d spot the clothes and shoes, and they’d know that meant I’d come in the house, and they’d come in, too.

  I spared a little disgust for the fact that I’d run to the nearest man for protection. However, I consoled myself, it wasn’t so much his muscles I wanted as the shelter of his house. That was okay, right? I wasn’t overly concerned with political correctness at the moment. Survival was more at the top of my list. And Bill wasn’t exactly at my disposal, assuming he’d be willing . . .

  “Sookie?” he murmured.

  “Bill, thank God you’re awake.”

  “You’re unclothed.”

  Trust a man to mention that first. “Absolutely, and I’ll tell you why—”

  “Can’t get up yet,” he said. “Must be . . . overcast?”

  “Right, big storm, dark as hell out there, and there’s people—”

  “’Kay, later.” And he was out again.

  Crap! So I huddled by his corpse and listened. Had I left the front door unlocked? Of course I had. And the second I realized that, I heard a floorboard creak overhead. They were in the house.

  “. . . no drips,” said a voice, probably from the foyer. I started to crawl to the hatch door so I could hear . . . but I paused. There was at least a chance that if they found the hatch and flipped it open, they still wouldn’t see Bill and me. We were way back in a corner, and this was a very big space. Maybe it had been sort of a cellar, as close to a cellar as you could get in a place that had such a high water table.

  “Yeah, but the door was open. She must have come in here.” It was a nasal voice, and it was a little closer than it had been.

  “And she flew across the floor, leaving no footprints? Raining as hard as it is out there?” The sarcastic voice was a bit deeper.

  “We don’t know what she is.” Nasal guy.

  “Not a vampire, Kelvin. We know that.”

  Kelvin said, “Maybe she’s a werebird or somet
hing, Hod.”

  “Werebird?” The snort of incredulity echoed in the dark house. Hod could really do sarcastic.

  “Did you see the ears on that guy? That was pretty incredible. You can’t rule out nothing, these days,” Kelvin advised his buddy.

  Ears? They were talking about Dermot. What had they done to him? I was ashamed. This was the first time I’d thought about what might have befallen my great-uncle.

  “Yeah, and? He must be one of those science fiction geeks.” Hod didn’t sound like he was paying much attention to what he was saying. I heard cabinets open and close. No way I could have been in any of those places.

  “Nah, man, I’m sure they were real. No scars or anything. Maybe I shoulda taken one.”

  Taken one? I shivered.

  Kelvin, who was closer to the pantry than Hod, added, “I’m gonna go upstairs, check out the rooms up there.” I heard the sound of his boots diminish, heard the distant creak of the stairs, his muffled footfalls up the carpeted treads. Very faintly, I followed some of his movements on the second floor. I knew when he was directly above me, in the room I figured was the master bedroom, where I’d slept when I was dating Bill.

  While Kelvin was gone, Hod wandered to and fro, though he didn’t seem very purposeful to me.

  “Right . . . there’s nobody here,” Kelvin announced when he returned to the former kitchen. “Wonder why there’s a hot tub in the house?”

  “There’s a car outside,” Hod said thoughtfully. His voice was much closer, right outside the open pantry door. He was thinking about getting back to Shreveport and taking a hot shower, putting on dry clothes, maybe having sex with his wife. Ew. A few too many details along with that. Kelvin was more prosaic. He wanted to get paid, so he wanted to deliver me. To whom? Dammit, he wasn’t thinking about that. My heart sank, though I would have sworn it was already down to my toes. My bare toes. I was glad I’d painted my toenails recently. Irrelevant!