“You threw up in there,” he said. “I think we need to get you back to the hospital. See what’s going on.”
“I’m okay.”
“You keep saying that, honey. It was blood, though. That’s not good. And with not being alert, I’m pretty worried.”
It was difficult when your father wasn’t just a fireman, but a paramedic, too. She didn’t even notice he had fingers pressed on her wrist and was looking at his phone. “Your pulse is almost non-existent. In fact, I can’t really feel one,” he said, and moved his fingers to her neck. “Honey, I’m not really finding a pulse.”
Madison pulled away from his touch. “I’m just tired.”
“Tired doesn’t eliminate a pulse,” he said.
He smelled good. She heard his heart. “I need to lie down. If I don’t seem better after a nap, we can go to the hospital. Okay?”
She sat up.
Adam put a hand on her shoulder. “Stay here. I want to be able to keep an eye on you. I’ll get a blanket from your room. I don’t want you moving around.”
He stared at her.
She avoided his eyes.
How would she ever explain the way her eyes looked? He’d end up calling her an ambulance.
He stood up, left the living room, and went toward her bedroom.
This couldn’t work. She wasn’t going to be able to stay here, to stay with him. He’d have too many questions and would never believe her answers. She did not want to be committed to some psychiatric wing in a far off hospital. Straitjackets and padded walls. There was no time for that.
There was no time for it because somewhere was a trailer filled with children, and hungry monsters were about to eat them. No one knew where those kids were.
No one except her. There had to be families going crazy worrying about their kids. She thought about the officers she’d talked to in the hospital. At that time she hadn’t been able to provide helpful information.
“We need to call the police,” she said.
Her father walked back into the living room with a blanket. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I remember something about that night. I have to talk to the police.”
# # #
Investigator Wheeler wore a dark suit. The pants were loose fitting, the jacket trim, but not snug. Madison could see her gun in a shoulder holster.
“Can I get you some coffee or something?” Adam said. He looked uncomfortable to have the female investigator inside the house. Maybe he was uncomfortable because he wasn’t sure what his daughter remembered.
“I’m good, Mr. Young, thank you.”
“Adam. Please,” he said.
Wheeler’s brown hair was pulled back away from her face and wrapped in a bun on top of her head. A loose wisp of hair that had fallen free, hung alongside her eye. The investigator kept brushing it back and toward her ear, but it wasn’t long enough to tuck away. “I appreciate you calling me, Madison.”
Madison sat in the recliner. She felt better, more herself. She itched to sneak into her room for blood, but hadn’t done so yet. “You told me to call if I remembered anything.”
“I did, that’s correct.”
Madison looked at the pad and pen in Wheeler’s hands. “I am ready whenever you are.”
Madison nodded, but remained silent. It was there, the memories, but vague and slightly elusive. She could recall the basics. “After Neal dropped me off home–”
“Your friend from school.”
“Yes.” Madison closed her eyes. She thought she could force the memory to become more crisper in doing so. It didn’t work. She kept them closed. She didn’t want the police investigator noticing how her eyes had changed. “After he dropped me off home, I didn’t want to go into the house.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t like my mother’s boyfriend, and my mother wasn’t home from work yet.”
Investigator Wheeler nodded.
“I think I ended up back at the carnival.” She breathed in a deep breath through her nostrils.
Wheeler’s blood was so sweet smelling. Madison put an arm across her stomach as it grumbled. She hoped no one else heard it.
“You think?”
“I’m sure I did.”
“That’s not exactly close to your house. How did you get there?”
“Walked.”
“It was cold and rainy.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I wasn’t going into the house. Not alone.” She knew her father was listening. As angry as she was with her mother, she did not want to cause more issues between her parents. This wasn’t about them, though. Maybe it never was.
“What happened once you got back to the midway?”
“The midway?”
“The carnival.”
“I heard something coming from one of the trucks,” she said. “An eighteen wheeler.”
“What did you hear?”
“Someone calling for help, I think.” Or had they just been banging on the walls from within? No. Someone had been calling for help. “Yes. It was someone calling out for help.”
“Did you go and tell someone?”
Madison shook her head. “I found the trailer where the voice came from, and I opened the back doors.”
“What did you see when you looked inside?”
“It had been dark. Very dark.”
“Can you recall?” Wheeler had not written a single thing down yet. Madison wasn’t sure why, wasn’t sure if it was significant.
“There were kids inside. They were chained inside the back of the truck.”
“Kids?”
“They didn’t even look ten years old.”
“How many, Madison? How many kids did you see inside?” Wheeler wrote on her small pad of paper now. The pen made scribble sounds.
“I don’t know. It was too dark to tell.”
“Was there more than one?”
“Yes, many more.”
“More than three?”
“Yes.” Madison saw them chained along one wall, and limbs of others partially covered by darkness along the other.
“More than five?”
“I think so, yes.”
“How about ten. Close your eyes. Try to see it. Can you see ten children?”
Madison concentrated. “There could be more than ten, I’m not positive.”
“But at least five?”
“Yes. There were at least five kids in there.”
There was a period of silence before Investigator Wheeler asked her next question, “What happened next?”
Madison shook her head. It was slow. She wasn’t indicating no, as much as trying to remember, to see more of the memory. “I was grabbed. And attacked,” she said.
“What did they do?” It was her father.
“They hit and kicked me.” They bit me, she thought. She kept that to herself. “They put me in a truck, and I think I passed out.”
“Do you remember anything else about the attackers?”
“Tattoos. Nose rings. I can picture them in my mind, but I can’t see it clearly.”
“Would you recognize them again if you saw them?”
“I think I would. I can hear their voices.”
“Good,” Wheeler said. “That’s good. Is there anything else?”
“I woke up in the hospital. That’s about it.”
“That’s ‘about’ it? Or is that everything?” Wheeler said.
“That’s all I can remember.”
“You did good. Real good. I’m going to talk to your father for a minute in the other room, okay?”
“Is it okay to go to the bathroom?”
Wheeler smiled. “It’s okay with me.”
Adam stepped forward and offered his hand. Madison used it, and was hoisted up and out of the recliner in a smooth, single motion.
She went into the bathroom and closed the door.
“I’m glad you guys called me,” Wheeler said. Madison could hear the investigator as clearl
y as if they stood side-by-side.
“That helpful?” Adam said.
“We don’t have any recent missing children reports that I’m aware of. None in the two week time period the carnival was in town, anyway. But I am going to double check.”
Madison stood with her hands planted on the counter in front of the sink and stared at her face in the mirror.
“Does what she said make any sense?” Adam said.
Madison saw that her eyes looked normal in the mirrored reflection.
“It’s a long walk from where your ex-wife lives to where the carnival was set up. Not that she couldn’t have walked it. She could have. I am going to interview her friend again, see what time he dropped her off at the house. See if I can piece together a time frame to work with. And in the meantime, I will track down the carnival and see where they were stopping next.”
She stared at her own pupils.
“You think she imagined it?”
“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying I am going to take the information she just provided and follow up on it.”
Maybe a straitjacket and padded wall made more sense. She could be losing her mind. She might have lost it already.
“Thank you for coming down,” Adam said. “I appreciate that.”
“If she remembers anything else, don’t hesitate contacting me directly. My cell number is on the back of this card.”
Crazy or not, she could not deny the wonderful and alluring way Wheeler’s blood smelled. She needed to eat.
She was starving.
Chapter 11
“Hello?”
“Neal?” Madison looked around her bedroom. There was an overall grey and drab sensation she felt. The vibrant colors faded and lackluster.
“Maddy?”
“Listen, the police may be coming to see you again.” She wasn’t sure if the room needed a fresh coat of paint or if it had something to do with her vision. She worried her body was going through changes that would cripple her senses for the rest of her life. Puberty was one thing. This was unexplainable.
“Why?”
“I remembered something. They just left here.” She didn’t know if calling the police had been the right move. It wasn’t about her, though. It was about the kids. Someone needed to save them. She hoped it wasn’t too late, that talking with Investigator Wheeler was done in enough time that the kids could be helped. She didn’t feel optimistic.
“They’re coming to my house? Now?”
“I have no idea. I just wanted to give you a heads up.” As long as Wheeler believed everything she’d said, the police should be able to track down the carnival and at the very least inspect the trailers. The kids were locked away in one of them. If the police checked them all, they’d find the kids or something, some kind of evidence that pointed to the fact children had been held captive. There was no way the carny people could wash away the pungent odors of feces and urine.
“What did you tell them? What did you remember?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Not now. Not over the phone.” Madison stood by her closed bedroom door. She wanted to tear into that second cup of blood. She still felt weak and knew it would make her feel better, stronger.
“You want to go out, run to the mall or something? Are you at your dad’s?”
“We could do that. Yeah. I’m at my dad’s. I really want to swing by my mother’s and pick up some things.” Madison absently held the pendant between her fingers.
“I don’t want to go there.”
“I’m not asking you. I can do it tomorrow.” She didn’t want to go alone, though. If she asked her father, he would take her. She imagined her dad punching out Oliver, the police getting called, and him getting arrested for assault. She would have to go on her own.
Adam knocked on the door. “I think we should go out to eat. Unless smoked garlic bread still sounds good to you?”
“I’m really not hungry, but thank you,” she said.
“What if I just order a pizza?”
He had to leave for work soon, she knew. “That sounds good.”
“You okay?”
“I am,” she said.
Neal said, “Are you still there?”
“Sorry. I was talking to my dad.” Would she never get to eat or enjoy a pizza again? That had been one of her favorite foods. It was probably why he was ordering it. He hoped she’d eat. She knew she might have to fake it and eat a slice to make him happy, even if it meant she’d have to vomit it up after.
“You want to go to the mall? You can tell me what’s going on.”
“Can you do me a favor?”
“I really don’t want to see your mother,” he said.
“No. Not that. Can you research the carnival? See if you can find a schedule for them, where they went to from here, and where they are going from there? Get addresses and stuff?” Madison knew the police would be working on it. Investigator Wheeler had said so. It wouldn’t hurt to try and track them down on her own. Neal was a computer geek and amateur hacker. His room resembled a high-tech office you might find in some super-secret governmental agency.
“I could do that.”
“Let me know what you find?”
“You know I will. Hey, you going to school tomorrow?”
“Taking one more day off. I need to get my laptop and books from my mom’s house anyway.”
“You want me to take you?”
“No. I’ll go. I’ll use my dad’s Jeep in the morning.”
“Meet at New Roots after school?”
New Roots was a small coffee shop by the mall. “We can do that.”
“Okay. I’ll find out what I can about the carnival, and we’ll talk tomorrow. If anything changes, call me.”
“I will. You, too.”
Neal hadn’t mentioned feeling sick since before they went to the carnival. Not once. She wondered if all of the drama kept him too busy to remember to be sick. If so, then at least the tension was good for someone.
Madison disconnected the call and tossed her phone onto the bed. She sat in front of her vanity where she faced one mirror, and two other angled mirrors confronted her. Her eyes looked fine. Normal. The irises and pupils looked like they should.
She removed the cup of blood and peeled off the plastic lid.
It was thick. Should have been kept in the fridge, she thought. It didn’t matter. She needed the blood. Craved it. Her tongue salivated. She smiled, looking at her reflection.
She had fangs.
Teeth protruded on the top row at the corners of her mouth. Along the bottom, two more teeth grew pointed and shot upward.
She looked like a vampire.
She was a vampire.
In slow swallows she drank the blood, savoring the warm, almost jelly-like fluid as it rolled down her throat.
The energy boost was instantaneous. It ran through her, starting in her stomach and flaring out to her limbs. She thought she could feel a tingle in her toes and fingernails. She looked at her hands. Her fingernails were longer, sharper. They resembled claws.
“I guess a large with pepperoni and mushroom.” She heard Adam ordering pizza and turned around. He wasn’t in the room with her, but sounded like he was.
She looked back at the mirror.
Her eyeballs had turned into living marble masses once again.
The blue and white and black swam around and around, as if the colors had been stirred inside tiny pools.
The blood was what did it, what changed her. She knew this as fact because the colors in her room changed. They almost glowed. The room didn’t need fresh paint. She just had needed to feed.
It was like what Butcher had told her.
And human blood would increase the intensity of her senses. Human blood would change her perhaps forever.
The muscles in her arms and legs throbbed. The strength she felt was almost concrete, like she could touch it.
The surge rolled over the fire she felt in her belly. It didn’t ex
tinguish it. That flame seemed eternal, but it washed over the heat in a way that satiated it, at least for the moment.
Chapter 12
The weather conditions during days in late autumn and winter could be misleading. Today was not one of those misled days. It didn’t look as if dark clouds covered the sun in a dreary sky, it looked more like the blue sky had become a solid slab of grey, and that there just was no sun at all. Could the sun have given up and refused to rise?
The air was bitter and bit at exposed flesh as it whipped wildly about. Inside her father’s Jeep the cloth cover and plastic windows provided shelter, but little else. She shivered as she stepped on the clutch and put the Jeep in reverse. The heater would kick on and do its job by the time she was back home.
Madison knew her father wasn’t thrilled she was ditching school again, but he called her in sick anyway. He’d agreed to let her borrow the Jeep. She neglected to tell him she wanted to get some of her belongings from her mother’s house. He would have insisted on riding over with her before he went to bed for the day. She knew he wanted to talk more about why she’d left her mother and moved in with him. He liked answers. Thankfully he knew not to ask a ton of questions. He had to have figured when she was ready she would tell him.
In total, Madison had neglected to answer eight calls and refused to return countless texts from her mother. She supposed she should have called her to say she’d be stopping by for her things, but just didn’t want to have to talk to her. She guessed her mother would be at work anyway, and all she would have to deal with was Oliver.
She was ready for him, though. He wasn’t going to touch her again. She was no longer intimidated by him. She didn’t have to pacify situations to make her mother happy, because right now she didn’t care about making her mother happy. She realized, or maybe always knew, the woman was selfish, taking sides with anyone but her, regardless.
Pulling the Jeep over at the curb, Madison sat inside the vehicle rubbing her hands together and just staring at her mother’s house. She didn’t expect to see the car in the driveway. It meant they were both home. Part of her wanted to drive away and come back later with Neal or her father. She had been ready to deal with Oliver. She wasn’t sure she was in any kind of mood to take on both of them.
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